


The Probability of being a Dame is 0.001%

by MatchaMochi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ....mentions of rape, Angst and Humor, F/F, F/M, Fem!Steve, M/M, My bisexual babes, Stephanie Feels, Stephanie is not captain america but she is, Stephaniecentric, Stony Feels, completed!, introducing all the steves and tonys of the universe, let me bombard you with other worlds jargon, lol, lots and lots of cheek kisses, mentions of civil war, my loose understanding of civil war cuz i dont read the comics dont kill me, oh and cheek kisses!, twisted plots and movies, welcome to the emotional rollercoaster that is Stephanies life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-05 05:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4168161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatchaMochi/pseuds/MatchaMochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Tomorrow she gets thrown out of the fifth office she tries.<br/>She doesn’t stop and the day after that she brushes down her pants.'</p><p>Or in which we delve into Stephanies life with the help of a pair of idiots from another universe-</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brooklyn

In this world there is no Captain America.

(Wait wait wait, back up here Tony, you _know_ that’s not how it goes right-

Yep, I’m fixing it,

Tony, _no._ )

Let me rephrase that.

In this world, Captain America’s full name is Steven Grant Lawson.

Seventy years after he drowns in the Atlantic Ocean, his sister wakes up beside him to his wrinkled dead body and thinks about the probability of her drowning in her own tears.

It was a little pathetic.

She stops then and thought about the probability of her actually dreaming the whole thing before SHIELD made their appearance and then she thinks,

‘ _Well then, at least Hitler’s dead.’_

* * *

 

The infinite possibility of parallel universes is…. a lot.

( _wow_ Tony-

Shut up, _I’m_ talking alright

Hmph,)

But really, how were they made in the first place? The hypothetical reason behind alternate universes is that it is based, solely, on an event. May it be significantly insignificant or insignificantly significant; every universe has a 50% chance of having two outcomes happening after said event.

Or 30%

or 5%

or 0.0001%

0r-

( _We get it tony,_

_Okok yeesh.)_

Say, take the world war for instance, Hitler could’ve lived and planned world domination on a later date, or America might have other ideas and would take the whole dictatorship for a try, or no one would have survived the war and _The End_ that’s how _that_ world ended. Everyone dies.

Honestly, the possibilities are endless; there might even be a world where evolution never happened.

(If it ever.

But Richard said-

_Don’t talk to me about Reed oh god, ……_ and since when do you call him _Richard?_

……)

Anyway back to more _relevant_ topics, _this_ universe changes when Sarah marries her first husband, Joseph Rogers. To be more precise, it’s after their month long honeymoon and Sarah sees her stomach swelling with the promise of a new healthy child. It’s when she gets pregnant that this whole new dimension separates itself from the norm, forming a whole new universe.

The chances of how the X and Y chromosomes swimming inside her combined didn’t matter, they would have loved their child all the same had it been a girl or a boy.  

And chances are, in this universe, the X chromosome is not, in fact, paired with the Y. It slips off, (that’s possible right? meh whatever.) and pairs with another X. Chances are 0.001% where Sarah Rogers child is a girl. This is where it happens.

Sarah named her Stephanie while Joseph chose Grace and thus, Stephanie Grace Rogers was born.

 

 

 

 

It was happy, for a while. But then Joseph died after he had conscripted, leaving his one year old baby girl to his sickly wife to support themselves.

Then, Stephanie wishes she wasn’t the 0.001%.

 

* * *

 

This universe changes, yet again, when Sarah Rogers marries Duke Lawson.

Instead of ‘Sarah’ now, people calls her Miss Lawson, because everyone knows a Lawson isn’t anything to joke about. A Lawson was a sign of strength and fear, a Lawson was no place for a weakling. The family had owned a boxing ring and won too many matches for them not to get noticed.

Duke was forced to sell the place though; nobody wanted to waste any money seeing matches when they could use it to buy overpriced food. When he did, Sarah hadn’t thought much of it, she only wanted someone to support her and her daughter.

It wasn’t the same as it was when she married Joseph but Duke was nice to her. He’d understood her situation and had started working for the shop downtown to earn them some money. Stephanie had concluded that her mother and stepfather were like friends. Close friends, but just friends in the end.

Soon, the family of three became a family of four as Steve Lawson was born and Stephanie couldn’t remember a day when she was this happy, holding her little brother in her thin arms, his wide golden-brown eyes staring up at her.

“ _He’s beautiful.”_

Sarah cried while Duke hugged her close.

Stephanie stayed with Steve the whole night.

* * *

 

Stephanie thinks her stepfather hated her until she turns sixteen.

It wasn’t a surprise; she looked nothing like a Lawson. Scrawny, short, a messy mop of hair that looked like dishwater most of the time that she almost forgot it was even blonde. And _ugly_ , so, so ugly. She was shy, awkward; they often say she had no back bone. She could _never_ be a Lawson.

She knows this because of how Duke had once looked at her and frowned; this confused disappointing look crossing his face like he doesn’t understand why Stephanie was even _here._

So she worked day and night trying to avoid him and would only come home if her mother needed anything or if Steve just wanted someone to play with.

Until she hears rumours of Duke planning to marry his stepdaughter to-

She stops listening from there, livid and _scared_ to see if it was true. It couldn’t be, no, he _wouldn’t._

She returns home that day to an unknown man sitting at their guest room and a loud argument brewing between Duke and the man. Less of an argument and more of an aggressive discussion actually since they haven’t started shouting at each other yet but she could tell Duke was just dying to throw a chair at him.

“Get out.” Duke’s using his cold voice on him. That was never a good sign.

“Mister Lawson-“

“ _Out.”_

“I’m just telling you that my son-“

_“_ And _I’m_ telling you that my _daughter_ is well enough on her own. Gods knows how much strength she has in her! She has _a mile_ long list of medical problems but did you know how she helped her mother day and night before I married Sarah? My wife told me she didn’t sleep for _days_.”

Duke is gripping hard on the chair, his knuckles white, “She’s a fighter is what she is, and I don’t intend to marry off my brave daughter to your _selfish snot nosed son so shove off.”_

Its moments later when Stephanie tries.

“Du-dad?”

He looks at her tiredly and her heart sinks when he gave her _the look_ again, “Stephanie,”

Then,

“Sometimes I wonder why you’re still here when you could have been far more amazing out there.”

She couldn’t really feel the floor at the moment.

“Out there?”

He shakes his head slowly, “There’s a big world out there Steph, just had a hunch that you’re going to be one of the people who changes it,” He smiles. “For the better.”

 

 

 

Before he leaves he calls back to her, “Oh, and call me Duke!”

(Why’s that though?

Because he knows he’ll never be ‘Father’ or ‘Dad’ to her,

Was he?

The best.)

* * *

 

Stephanie meets James ‘Bucky’ Buchannan Barnes when she earns a black eye for fighting back.

He held her close, hugging her as she cried and cried, hands shaking trying to pull up the torn dress to cover her chest. ‘They tried to rape me.’ she didn’t say but she whispers, breath hitching, back trembling, “It’s my fault, my fault…”

What was she _thinking_? You don’t use back alleys, _especially_ if you are Stephanie. Because if you’re Stephanie, you are weak, you are a target; you are _ugly_ but good enough for a nice fuck-

_God, what was she thinking, shit-_

_“Don’t.”_ it’s a choked sound, like barely controlled anger. He stares at her, eyes blazing- _furious_. He holds her tighter and squeezes her shoulder. “Listen,” he begins and Stephanie tried to stop the rush of blood at her ears, pounding through her head. She places her shaking hand on Bucky’s so he continues, “This-“he stopped for a beat, “What happened here was not, in _any_ circumstances, your fault alright? Those _sons of bastards_ did this,” he spits their name like its poison and Stephanie notices his bloodied knuckles beginning to swell, “You were just here.”

He drops his shoulders then, she could hear the desperation in his voice. _“_ You were just _here.”_

He sends her home covering her with his jacket. She tells him not to tell Duke anything, she doesn’t want anyone to know, they had enough on their plate as it is.

Steve is, fortunately, taking his afternoon nap so she doesn’t have to worry about him seeing her black eye. Bucky was silent the whole way. He promised to her not to tell anyone and she believes him.

 

 

 

The next day, Duke bursts inside her room, his face a shade of red she had never seen before on him. To see his usually calm demeanour shattered in a fit of rage was _terrifying_. The second he sees her bruised eye he storms towards her and says,

“ _Who?”_

“D-duke-“

“ _Tell me.”_

Stephanie shakes her head in defeat.

 

 

The boys that usually hangs out in the bar Duke frequents in turns out to be the new recruits for the army. The boys ends up in the hospital with three broken fingers, a dislocated shoulder, and a death threat for each and every one of them.

Nobody messes with a Lawson.

 

* * *

 

(Tony.

Yes?

Let’s not do this today.

…..okay fine, are you alright? What’s the matter?

Nothing, it’s just- its-

……?

It’s just the past.)

* * *

 

Stephanie was mad at Bucky for lying to her but he just hangs his head and tells her with conviction, “Someone has to know.” he shakes his head, “Someone _needs_ to know.”

Stephanie sends him a puzzled look, scratches her short dirty blond mop of a hair at the side and stepped forward. She kisses his cheek, grins, and tells him that maybe, if he wants to, they could be friends.

Bucky blushed, confused when she had kissed his cheek but he brightens up and tells her he lived down by the old orphanage if she wanted to meet him.

“They tell me Miss Lawson makes really good apple pie, maybe a dame like you could show me the works?”

Stephanie stills, “Can’t sorry,”

It takes a minute, then,

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry, I didn’t _know-“_

* * *

 

When Sarah Lawson passed away,

(Sarah _Rogers,_ its Rogers Tony,

Alright,)

Steve was eleven and he can’t stop asking Stephanie if _‘Mama was getting any better,_ _she promised she’ll get better, where is she? Steph? Stephanie, where is she?’_

She shakes her head at him in answer, eyes red and swelling and pulls him into a crushing hug as he bawls, tears drenching her shoulder. Duke is as still as a statue and his face was frozen, blank and unreadable. He calls for Stephanie and even his voice felt like daggers.

“Who was the doctor that took care of her?”

Stephanie tells him and hurriedly adds, “Duke, it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know-“

Duke sends her a scathing look, “Like _hell_ he didn’t,” he hissed.

But it was _true_. The doctor was too busy treating other patients to notice that Sarah wasn’t just having a mere cold. _Everyone_ was sick; it hadn’t been a good time for anyone.

Stephanie carefully places her hands on him and squeezes them softly. “Don’t go after him.” When he tries to snatch his hands away, Stephanie holds on tight, “She wouldn’t want you to.”

His eyes widen and his shoulders slumped back. He smiled emptily, “No, she wouldn’t would she?”

 

 

At the funeral Stephanie asked Duke if he knows how to stop people from ever getting hurt and it’s _stupid_ so she’s not surprised when he shakes his head at her.

 “The only thing you can do,” he says softly, staring at his calloused hands, “Is fight for them.”

Stephanie stares at a conscription poster the next day and whispers to herself,

“ _Fight.”_

* * *

(Was she an artist?

Oh like _you_ wouldn’t know,

Oh come on just- humour me.

……occasionally.

……..I can _see_ you smiling Tony.)

Stephanie usually played with Bucky and his friends in the orphanage together, but the rest of the time, when she couldn’t keep up, when her asthma acts up on her and she just can’t move her legs anymore, she draws.

She takes out her crumpled old sketchbook and traces the paper with her worn down pencil. She draws them playing soccer-with-a-tin-can, fake-hockey, hopscotch and other games that could be made possible in the dirty roadways. It was charming, seeing  Bucky, a grown teenager like him playing with a couple of kids and even _arguing_ with them _god._

After a while, it stopped being weird. They still went to bars to grab a few drinks, (well fewer for her) but here, where they just fool around with the orphanage’s kids and Steve, here was where she felt the most content.

She sketches the scramble of legs and arms as they tried to catch the tin-can, the sun shining down on them drenching them with sweat, the smiles and laughter etched on each and every one of them and she knows there’s also one on her too.

She wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.

* * *

 

Stephanie was 23 and Steve was 19.

It didn’t stop him from being taller than her though.

“He has to look _down_ at me just to talk to me now, it’s not _fair_ Bucky,” She scowls at him when he howls in laughter that quickly turns into a, “Ow, _ow_ , okay okay stop it, it’s not that funny, not-“when she digs into his ribs with her elbow, at least there were _some_ advantages for being thin and bony.

“ _Bucky_ , listen to me he wants to be in the _army_ , he won’t _listen to me,”_

He rubs his sore side slowly and sends her a puzzled look, “Why are you even stopping him?”

She fumbles at the frills of her dress and tries to glare at him but it turned out to be more of an angry pout, “Why? He’s just a little kid Bucky, I- I _can’t-“_  

“Look Steph,” he shakes his head slowly, giving her a wry smile, “You just don’t want to let him go right? This is about him being you’re baby brother isn’t it?”

“It- it’s not…“

“Stephanie.” Bucky ruffles her hair, “I joined too you know,”

“…..I know.”

“Is this about me too?”

“Not everything’s about you, Barnes.”

She looks away, ”Idiot.”

Bucky just laughs and kisses her cheek like she did when they became friends, “Wouldn’t you know,”

After he leaves, she stares at the conscription poster again; whispers more fiercely to herself now,

“ _Fight”’_

And wonders if her brother’s clothes will fit her.

* * *

 

(What are the views on women joining the army?

None.

And why is that?

Because to them, it’s not possible at all.)

Stephanie doesn’t care.

 It was ridiculous; _of course_ she’ll get thrown out of the hundred conscription offices she signed up for. It wasn’t just her weak stature, she’s a _girl_. She wouldn’t pass the medical inspection never mind how small her breast was. What was a girl even _doing_ here? This was no place for her; this was a place for men who are ready to lay their lives down the line for the freedom of their country.

But she tries anyway, because why in the world would she _care?_

She is _not_ waiting for her brother and her friend to come home, battered and changed in a way she’ll never know. The thought that they might not come home at all only spurs her more. 

Her mind strikes back to where she first met Bucky and knows that she just didn’t want anyone to suffer anymore because of this horrible war. She remembers Duke when he was still alive telling her that she was a _fighter_ and she aims for just that. She doesn’t want to be alone waiting for them, because maybe deep inside she knows they won’t come back.

She places flowers over her mothers, fathers, and stepfathers’ grave that died because of the war. Duke died bravely she might say, but the man told nobody he was dying so she knows it’s true.

She runs through her short hair, shuffling in her pants. “I’ll fight.” She says, “I’ll fight for everyone.”

Tomorrow she gets thrown out of the fifth office she tries. She doesn’t stop and the day after that she brushes down her pants.

 

* * *

 

The Stark Expo brings her a date from Bucky and a smug smile from her brother as he dances with his. His golden-brown eyes are shining, dashing curly white blonde hair bouncing at the sides. It was no wonder nobody thought they were related.

“Awe don’t be jealous Steph, he’s not the only who’s amazingly handsome here right?”

She could _kill_ Bucky right now. “Yep, unfortunately the other ones on stage right now,”

Bucky gapes at her, “ _Stark?”_

( _Howard?_

Oh don’t be like that Tony; you know it’s in the genes

Well, yeah I know, but this is _him-_

Fine fine you’re way more fetching, happy?

Perfectly.)

Their attention snaps back at the stage and the audience gasps because _holy shit_ the car is _floating._ The man spouts words at the audience, new possibilities, a brighter future, a new _world._ She dreams about the future then, and hopes that after all of this was over, Bucky, her, and Steve could live in it. Together.

 

 

 

She doesn’t dance with her date after the presentation ends, mainly because she didn’t feel like it and the rest because she knows he’s not interested. The other reason might also be because she disappears right after when she sees him sweet talk another girl despite her being his date. Damn man.

She wanders out, breathing in the night air and feeling the wind ruffling her dress. She lets her feet take her anywhere no one could see her.  After a while, she spots a conscription poster and she stops, staring at it quietly. She sighs to herself,

 “ _Fight….”_

She’s not surprised when Bucky ends up beside her.

“Hey,” he looks at her, “What’s with the sad face?”

She frowned, “…..my date bailed out on me.” It’s not _entirely_ a lie.

“ _Shit,_ really? Aw Steph, I thought I chose a really good one this time I didn’t know he was a damn motherfu-“

“It’s fine really,” she interrupts him before he starts to swear more graphically, “I’m used to it.” She smiles when he straightens up, flashes her the don’t-make-me-pity-you-Stephanie-Rogers look and plainly hisses, “Do _not.”_ She loves how he even tries really.

She looks at him properly then, his dark hair, his handsome face, his bright dark eyes and suddenly, she feels a sudden lurch when she realises that this is _Bucky_ and he’s going to _war._

She swallows it though, “How’s Steve?” she asks instead.

Bucky snorts, “The kid? Never seen him this happy before, you would have thought that that’s the first girl he’d ever danced with if you didn’t know any better,”

She smiles, a little heavier know, ‘ _They don’t need me.’_ it’s a dark, tiny part of her that thinks that and she can’t help but think it’s true. So she changes it. ‘I _need them’_ To be here, to be together.

“That’s great,” she says out loud, “Really great.”

She smiles up at him, raising her eyebrows, “What are _you_ doing here then? Ditching you’re date isn’t very gentlemanly of you,” Bucky laughs.

He shakes his head then and ruffles her hair softly, “Couldn’t leave my best bud brooding alone here now would I?”

“I wasn’t…… _brooding.”_

He gives her a pointed look, “uhuh,” he smiles then, much more softly now. “We’ll be fine Steph.”

“Both Steve and I.” he squeezes her shoulders, “After all this, we’ll meet you back here, just wait for us.”

Stephanie stares at him for a moment and nodded her head slowly, “Alright…”

She doesn’t believe him.

“Now, don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone alright? Your brother will _kill me_ if he sees you following me,”

_‘Not if the bombs kill you first.’_

She smiles at him, “How can I?” she kisses his cheek, “You’re taking all the stupid with you,”

 

* * *

 

(Is this when-

Yes.)

She meets Abraham Erskine right after the expo when she tries again.

He only raises his eyebrows at her pants and said softly, “Miss. Stephanie Lawson-“

“It’s Rogers,” she smiled apologetically, “Stephanie Grace Rogers.”

His eyes widened and he smiles at her, more warmly now, “I have a proposition for you,”

He gives her a file, “You look like a fighter Miss. Rogers,” his voice reminds her of Duke, soft but firm albeit with a slight German accent. “And, I reason, a woman who takes care of her mother, brother, father and friend is most certainly a person with a good heart.” He smiles, but now he seems to be looking through her, his eyes giving a faraway look, “A heart of a mother.” He murmurs.

“You read my background.”

His smile thinned and he clasps his hands together, “I am here to give you a chance,”

Stephanie stills. Her hearts pounding and she knows she’s held her breath too long because _this is it. This_ is her _chance._

She takes it. 

* * *

 

(Does she regret it?

Not once.

Will she do it again?

Always.

_Good.)_

 


	2. War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can feel the rush of adrenaline down her veins, she steadies her jaws and grits her teeth and remembers all the times she used to get in trouble in school for fighting back. She raises her eyebrows,
> 
> “That all you got?”

 (Hey, hey,

*Sighs* what is it Tony?

They didn’t send her to the same camp as the other soldiers’ right?

They did actually.

Why?

She was a test subject.

They were _all_ test subjects.

Well, she was a disposable test subject then, they wouldn’t waste their time searching for a new barrack just for her, you _know_ this Tony,

Alright, alright, just _wow,_ sons of _bitches_

It wasn’t that bad.

?

She met Peggy.

_Oh I see.)_

* * *

 

Her hairs getting longer but she didn’t have time to cut it so she ties it in a bun. She wears the standard uniform just like everybody else, although the shirt was a size too big for her but she takes what she gets and doesn’t say anything about it. She feels triumphant when she receives her dog tags but that’s it. She doesn’t expect anything else when she arrives with the others. Well actually she expects _worse._

And boy did she get it.

“Hey officer! Who’s the hag?”

She sighed to herself, pointedly ignoring the other snickering men ogling at her. It brings her to an unpleasant memory when she remembers her bed is placed beside one of many. With _them._ This time there was no Bucky here to save her.

“You planning on standing around here skank?” she glares right back at him making her best furious-Duke-stare and decides that she doesn’t need Bucky to save her. She has a pretty good left hook anyway.

* * *

 

When she meets Peggy her world tips sideways, her breath hitches and she questions herself.

* * *

 

(That’s all?

That’s all.

Oh come on Tony, I’m sure she’d felt more than that.

But we don’t really need to go in about that in detail now do we?

Yes. Yes we do.

Nope, no we don’t. Now continuing on-

Tony….

What.

Are you…..

No.

You _are_. You’re _jealous._

Dammnit. Damn you.

Ton-

_Fine. Fine I’ll do it alright,_

Thank you.

Blergh.)

 

* * *

 

Stephanie meets Peggy when one of them makes the mistake of belittling her. His on the ground faster than you could say _damn,_ and Colonel Philips just smirks right through all of it.

Stephanie though, her eyes are all on Peggy. The dust clouds over her when he falls and when it clears up Stephanie gapes because that woman is _majestic._ Dark red lipstick on a beautiful sculptured face, curls of dark brown hair at the sides and a fierce steady look that makes her shiver with fear. It’s everything she isn’t, it everything she wish she _was._

When she speaks to them, Stephanie feels like she could just drink up her sizzling British accent and her soft voice that comes with a hard edge. She wants, _wants_ so bad and suddenly she feels like she’s drenched in freezing cold water because beautiful, ferocious, strong Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter is a _woman._

When Peggy raises her eyebrows at her, Stephanie gives her a small smile.

* * *

  

(thank you.)

 

* * *

 

It happens two weeks after when she wakes up for morning showers and sees that she doesn’t need it after all. She’s _drenched,_ not just her, her bed, her stuffs. She could feel the thin white shirt she wore for bed sticking at her and she congratulates herself for having the sense to wear a binder, even if her breast is non-existent it felt good to be guarded.

She gets up with a snap, her head spinning, blood pounding at her ears. She stares incredulously at the guy over her bed, his face grinning with glee, hands waving a bucket at his side. “ _What the-“_ she starts but it drowns in the loud hacking laughter from everyone else gathered around her bed, pointing and gawking at her and she- she _snaps_ because she _hates_ the way they look down on her. The way they think that _they_ have the upper hand because she’s _weak_ and _ugly._ Two weeks, two weeks of mocking catcalls, tripping, jeering, and insulting and she has had _enough._

“Rise and shine _Rogers_!”

The crowd of men circled over her bed was still guffawing at her even when she gets up and glares at the lot. Her legs are shaky, she’s barefooted and wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt but she tightens her hand into a fist, faces the man who had done this and brings out her left hook Bucky taught her with a shout. The man with the bucket drops it and _laughs_ because of course it wouldn’t hurt, she’s not surprised but she acts quickly, grabs the bucket with both hands and whacked it right over his stinking mug.

The laughing dies out when he howls back in pain, and Stephanie feels herself smile in satisfaction. But she’s not done yet. She drops the bucket with a ‘ _Thunk’_ and grins when she sees the man squeaks back in surprise.

She knows they won’t gang up on her; they’re not like the bastards that tried to rape her, their soldiers not criminals, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be bullies.

_She’s_ a soldier too now so she stares back, lips thin, tilts her head up, and raises her hands up into fists. She can feel the rush of adrenaline down her veins, she steadies her jaws and grits her teeth and remembers all the times she used to get in trouble in school for fighting back. She raises her eyebrows,

“That all you got?”

* * *

 

(What did she get for that then,

A black eye, couple of bruises and a _really_ bad hair day.

……and also a reprimand from Peggy.

Hmmmm, might not be that bad then.  What did he get?

……

..…I don’t like the way you’re smiling.)

 

 

 

“You kicked his _naughty bits?”_

Stephanie scowled, “He pulled my _hair.”_

Peggy laughs back at her.

When the fight got too loud, Colonel Philips had barged in taken one look at her, bedraggled and bruised with a cut at her bottom lip, her bed, ruined and drenched, and the men, determinedly looking anywhere but at him. He’d grimaced, shook his head and gave the man a hundred laps not before barking  at each of their faces about ‘ _Idiots’_ and telling their mothers that _’ you tried to hit a girl. Your old momma won’t be too happy hearing that now would she?’_ When one of them had laughed outright they all knew who was going to be on toilet duty tonight.

Philips sent her to Peggy to get her sorted out, she had taken one look at Stephanie before sighing at her.

“You always seem to look for trouble don’t you?” she chuckles.

Stephanie shrugs, “I’d think it’s the other way around actually.”

Peggy smiles at her and slowly places the ice bag over her eye. Stephanie closes her eyes, swallowing the pain in, and brushes her fingers over her bruised knuckles. 

“I saw claw marks at his face Rogers,” Peggy murmurs, she lets Stephanie hold out the ice bag and gets set on bandaging her hands, “You sure did a number on him, and ahem, to his, er, naughty bits,”

Stephanie tries to smile but it turns out to be more of a grimace, “Didn’t cut my nails.”

Peggy pats her left hand when she finished bandaging it and motions for the other one, “Seems like you shouldn’t, for a while.” She smoothed her fingers down on the bandage, “Why do they do this to you Steph? I’m worried,” she shakes his head, “They weren’t this bad when I came in,”

Stephanie tries to trample down the warmth she feels at Peggy’s worry and repeats to herself again ‘ _IdontlikeherIdontlikeherIdontloveherIdontloveherlove-‘_ She tilts her head to the side so Peggy could clean the cut at her cheek and lip, “it’s fine.” She flinches. It stings. “I’m used to it.”

She feels Peggy stiffens, “What?” she looks baffled. “Why?” 

Stephanie ducks down, looking away. She rather have the Bucky-look than what Peggy’s doing to her now,

“Steph?” She feels soft fingers at her chin tilting her face up, she still doesn’t look back at Peggy, “Why?”

“B-because you know I’m,” She gestures at herself, waving her hands around, “I’m _me.”_

Peggy gives her a quizzical look and Stephanie gives out a long sigh, she hated saying it out loud. It made it seem more real. “I’m ugly.” It was a matter of fact. “And, and short, weak, thin, small, bon-“

“ _Stephanie.”_ Peggy has this horrified look, it’s like she found out her dog died.

“Stephanie,” She says again, now with a little more steel into it. She grasps her hand and pulls it to her, “Can’t you _see?”_

Peggy shakes her head and smiles at her in exasperation, “You, Stephanie Rogers, “she tucks Stephanie’s damp hair behind an ear, “Are the most strongest woman I’ve seen for a long, long time.”

“W-what?” she was confused, because _what?_

Stephanie tries to protest but Peggy gives her a look and she snaps her mouth shuts, “Don’t you see, Steph? You’re the _only_ woman given out for testing here, and even when you’re physical state fails you, you carry yourself with _confidence_.”

Peggy smiles at her, warmly now, “You _are_ beautiful, even if no one can see that.”

Stephanie doesn’t reply for a while. “……I want to cut my hair,”

“Don’t.”

“Alright.”

She squeezes Peggy’s hand back and feels herself falling a little more in love with her every damn minute.

* * *

 

The flagpole falls down and Stephanie gives Peggy a high-five when she climbs on the jeep.

Stephanie wishes she would’ve gave her a little kiss though, maybe on the cheek?

(Dream on,

Get _out_ Tony Stark.)

* * *

 

“ _Watch out!”_

She tenses,

_“Grenade!”_

and throws herself to the ground.

 

 

 

 

Stephanie feels like a fool afterwards but Peggy grins at her then, so she thinks that it couldn’t be that bad. The Colonel glares at her more than usual though, so she’s not sure if that’s true.

Then, _after that,_ Dr.Erskine comes and tells her that she would be the first ever test subject so she can’t help being scared and nervous. It’s in the deep depths of her mind though, and she never digs it back out because she knows she’s never going to back out on this. Ever.

“I believe that it will be fine Miss. Rogers,” Like Duke, he sees right through her stubborn walls, “It will only bring out the good in you and I am certain you have many.”

He sighs then, looks at her steadily and says in a quiet voice, “I need to tell you something Stephanie.”

 He tells her about Johann Schmidt, how power drove him to madness and turned him into a monster. He tells her about the equations and data in his head that Schimdt would _kill_ to get his hands on, tells her how happy he is that she would be the first ever super soldier because he believes it could work this time, with Howard and his Vita-rays, and he believes in _her_ , that she would _make it_ work.

She finds it hard to believe him.

* * *

 

Stephanie tells Peggy about how she met Bucky on the way to the testing. She looks past familiar streets and also tells her about the times she, Bucky, and Steve had played around with the orphanages children. Peggy listens quietly, and says to her casually, “Wished I’d knew you sooner Steph, felt like I missed a lot of good times,” she holds Stephanie’s hands, “and times where you would’ve needed me,” she says that quietly, like she regrets it so.

‘ _I wish I’d met you sooner too.’_

Stephanie looks ahead and wishes and wishes and wishes,

* * *

 

She strips down to her khaki pants, leaving her binder on. The metal feels cold on her skin but she’s more worried about the metal _thing_ they were going to put her in. Howard Stark didn’t look too impressed when he saw her but well, there were worst reactions.

When it clanged shut and she’s inside it takes a minute for it to sink in. Then she feels like she’s eaten by _fire._ It was bright, too bright, she tries to close her eyes but she doesn’t even _know_ if her eyelids are still _there._ Everything is _burning_ , more than that, like liquid lava running down her veins, her skin _buzzing_ with tension and _heat._ She doesn’t realise she’s screaming her head off when she hears Peggy in the furthest corner of her brain shouting,

“ _Stop! I said STOP it’s_ hurting _her!”_

More shouting, a protest and finally, finally it gets to her now and she screams, “ _NO.”_

She feels hot metal pokers stabbing through her body, at her arms, legs, torso and she says, “ _I can do this.”_ She feels her body _shifting_ , muscles and tendons ripping and joining, bones breaking and growing, “ _I can do this just-“_ and her _heart_ , her heart feels like its pumped full with blood and oxygen and drained out of it again, it feels like its _bursting_ and _dying_ at the same time and it’s just _too much-_ “ _Just leave me.”_

There’s a bright flash and the only thing she’s aware of now is that she’s breathing and sweating hard and she doesn’t know _what_ but something felt _different._

When the pod opens, she’s met with shocked gaping faces. Peggy whispers face pale, “ _S-stephanie?”_

Peggy stumbles towards her, touching her arms carefully, tracing her stomach, “How do you feel?”

“….T-tall.”

She smiles shakily, “Did it- did it work?”

“Well-“

A gun shot sounds.

* * *

 

(How was it?

Amazing. Exhilarating.

…..what about Erskine?

Told her to stay true to herself, to not change, to have the heart of a mother, not a killer…….he was a good man.

No doubt about that. What happens then?

Then? Tony why-

It’s alright, just tell me.

……then they called Steve.)

 

 

It creeps into her head, slithering to her mind and echoes in her ears, ‘ _Hail Hydra.’_

She can still feel the moment where the man went limp in her hands; his face had this manic glee that sent shudders down her spine and all she could see in his eyes were _madness_. She doesn’t understand, it was Schimdt wasn’t it? But who and _what_ is Hydra-

“Steph?”

She snaps back to the present and-

Oh yes. Yes. She, _she’d changed._

She stepped back for a moment, looking back at her hands, her arms, legs, _body._ She didn’t have time to look properly at herself, what with the man who shot Erskine- _Erskine oh god-_

“Stephanie you’re panicking, what’s wrong?” Peggy looks at her in worry but she could see her eyes flicker down her body.

She shook herself, “Nothing, it’s nothing.” What was she thinking anyway? It had felt _great_ , for the first time ever she didn’t have this constant itch at her lungs, she didn’t feel _tired_ after running so fast, she had felt _strong_ in ways she could never have imagined. But- but she’s finding it very hard to breathe now for some reason-

“The _binder_ ,” she gasps, and for once the makeshift bandage she wrapped around her chest as a binder actually felt _tight._ Oh god it was her _breast_ it got a _whole_ lot bigge-

“Peg- Peggy I can’t- _I can’t-“_  

Peggy doesn’t waste any time, she pushes Stephanie into a corner where everyone too busy with the incident couldn’t see them and she rips off the binder from her chest.  She would’ve blushed if she hadn’t felt so relieved that she could actually _breathe_ now. 

“Deep breaths now Stephanie,” Peggy rubs slow circle at her back and she gulps down air like a dying man, her breathing steadying after a minute.

She notices new things now when her vision clears up,

( _She didn’t notice she was seeing funny what-_

Oh lay it down Tony, everything happened too _fast,)_

She has _muscles_ now, like _extreme_ muscles. She sees that she’s layered with the full six pecs package, her arms and legs are fuller and lean, ripped with it. She sees her reflection in one of the glass panes and stops because of her face. It felt like someone had put make-up on her. Permanently. She looked, well, _beautiful._ Her hair, long now, frames her face nicely and her baby blue eyes shines brighter with the rest of her body. Her cheeks aren’t as hollow as it was before, her lips somehow gaining a tinge of light pink softness on them. It fits and she can’t get over how _bizarre_ all of this was.

Peggy sees her gaping and smiles, “Told you Steph,”

Stephanie laughs, and shakes her head slowly, “Yeah, yeah you did.”

* * *

 

(Um, I thought you said Steve-

_Getting there Tony,)_

When she see them taking out Dr.Erskine dead body out, she lets a tear fall. The man died alone, it was only fair that someone would mourn for him.

 

 

 

She has Peggys jacket over her shoulders but it doesn’t mean she’s _completely_ covered so when she feels a hand on her shoulders, she tugs it closer to her chest and whips around frowning at the man.

He seemed surprised, “Are- are you….. _Rogers?”_ the man looked fishy, oily actually, like that one salesman that wouldn’t leave you alone. She lifts her head up, “Who wants to know?”

“Oh, you- you’re a woman….” Now he’s mildly disappointed but Stephanie just feels _offended_ because _what?_

Peggy strides in for the rescue and staresat the man until he backs off and when Stephanie tried to ask she says, “He’s bad news Steph, would do anything if it would get cash flowing in, I bet he would have told you some nonsense about being a stripper for the good of America.”

Stephanie shakes her head ruefully, “Looks like he wasn’t even considering me so that’s fine I guess.”

She gets an offer to be a test subject for who knows how long but she considers it, because maybe it could help people, maybe she would actually be _useful_.

(She knows it’s just a waste of time right? that she’d be _more_ useful out there?

Deep down yes.)

She refuses it and it’s a gut feeling but she knows she’d done the right thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Days passed after that, and she’s less sure that she did the right thing because, well, she hadn’t done _anything_. They wouldn’t let her go out, wouldn’t let her _help_ , because she’s a test subject, they don’t know what she’s capable of, they want to _control_ her.

She’s sitting down on a sofa in Peggy’s office idly sketching an intricate birdcage- _but it doesn’t change the fact that’s it still a cage-_ when she spots a familiar figure striding in, eyes bright, white blond curls bouncing at the sides and her eyes widen.

He sees her on the sofa, runs towards her and gathers her up in a bear hug so tight that she had to hold her breath for a while. “ _Stephanie.”_ And how could she have not noticed that his eyes were bright with _worry?_ He’s shoulders are _shaking_ , and his brushing down her sides as if to make sure that she’s really here, “Steph, Stephanie when I heard that they pulled you into a freaking _test experiment_ I thought they were _joking_ \- “ he frowns at her, kisses her forehead, “I am _so_ going to-“

“Don’t kill Bucky.” He laughs wetly and Stephanie could see that his eyes are wet and no _no_ she’s _not_ supposed to make her baby brother cry, “Stevie I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just-“ comes out in a rush and he stares at her quietly before shushing her, “It’s fine.” He smiled at her teasingly, “I’m _used_ to it.”

She scowls at him back right when Peggy entered saying, “ _Lawson_ why the hell did you run off like tha-“ then she sees them and, “….oh”

“Siblings!” they say at the same time because there had been _way_ too many misunderstandings in the past and that didn’t even counted when Bucky joined in.

Peggy shakes her head slowly and chuckles, “I can see that.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Wow Steph, you look _gorgeous,”_ he winced, “Not that you weren’t gorgeous _before_ it’s just, you know-” he blanched.

Stephanie missed this. Missed it so much, she just wants to takes Steve and gather him in her arms and never let go. “Yeah,” she laughs, “I get it.”

She tells him everything. Up to when she meets Dr.Erskine until when she meets him in Peggy’s office. He takes it all in slowly, turning red when she tells him about the time she got drenched and smiling when she tells him she kicked the man’s balls off. When she finishes, there’s a long moment of silence and Stephanie shuffled awkwardly beside Steve, his hands around her shoulders doesn’t move an inch.

“Honestly Steph,” he looks at her wryly, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

He pokes her arms then, and her tummy, “Hey!”

“But _this_ ,” he shakes his head, “ _This_ is surprising.”

Stephanie scowls at him and he grins back at her.

“Like it here? Feeling good just hanging around? How _are_ you?”

Well, she certainly did not miss this. “Peachy.”

He grins widens, and why oh why was he so damn sparkly and good-looking? “Hate it that much huh?”

He stands up suddenly and gives her a triumphant smile, “Don’t fret dear sister!” She doesn’t like the way he’s smiling.

“I have a plan.”

* * *

 

(Actually you guys would’ve been total bro’s if you’d met him Tony, you’re a lot like him,

Except for that part where he decides to go prancing around on stage just so his sister could get out and play soldier like she always wanted to? Yeah, no.

Nah, you would’ve done the same too Tony, believe it or not.

You don’t know me that well then.

I’m pretty sure I do Tony, _really,_ )

 

 

It’s a _horrible_ plan. Just, _no._

“I’ve always wanted to be famous Steph! It’s no biggie,”

_Yeah right._ Her brother was as good as lying as her, which is to say, not that good. _Terrible_ , actually. What he ‘ _Always wanted to be’_ was a boxer and when he couldn’t have that he wanted to be a _fighter_ and she is _not_ going to be the one that takes that away from him.

“I’m not doing this to you Steve.” His golden-brown eyes had that stubborn look to it; it’s the look that Duke gives her right after he does something stupid like _throwing his job away_. (Or telling no one that he was dying of cancer but, well,)

She frowns at him, “Steve this-“

“Is a _great_ plan, _you_ have the excuse of following me around and _fight_ so they can’t complain that you’re, er, to put it simply, ‘on a leash.’” Stephanie clicks her tongue, “And _I_ can be freakin’ _famous_ , I mean, imagine all the girls that’ll be lining up to meet me Steph!”

“I don’t get it Steve,” she narrows his eyes at him, “Why can’t we just _let you_ have the leash on me while actually _fighting_ beside me? I- _I don’t-“_ she sputters.

“A distraction.” Steve’s not smiling anymore. “Tell the higher ups you’re just tagging along for the ride. They can’t take custody of you if they think you’re in showbiz or whatever. Disguise as a man and they won’t pay attention to you when you’re going on missions while I bring money in for the war.”

Steve holds her hands tightly, “The only reason that man didn’t take you was because he thought you wouldn’t appeal to the public. I know how men like him think Steph, they want dominant heroic figures as their main selling point, and frankly,” he scowled, “I hate how it’s true but you _know_ it’s the only way you can get out of here Steph.”

It was silent for a while. She sighed, running her fingers down his curly hair. “Why would you do so much for me Steve?”

He looked at her, surprised, and then he smiled, “Because you would have done so much _more_ for me.”

 

 

 

 

Peggy comes in, moments later. They tell her the plan and she frowns in general disapproval.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Well, she wasn’t _entirely_ right.

* * *

 

(The star spangled man~~ With a plan~~~

Oh Tony, _drop it_

Must admit it though, the ladies must’ve _loved him_ , did Steph had a great time?

Not really,

Why not?

Covert missions, she was Agent Roy at one time then Officer Grayson the second. It didn’t suit her, but it’s a good disguise. By, you know, being undercover.

Nobody noticed she had that super strength going on?

Agents aren’t supposed to be seen in the first place, so…no.

Then Bucky happened.

Right. Bucky.

……Not up for it today?

Sorry…another time Tony?

No probs, just tell me when you feel like it,

Alright.)

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr.Erskine had asked her before, ‘ _Do you want to kill Nazis?’_

And she doesn’t even need to think before saying, ‘ _I just want to fight, fight for the people I care about.’_

That’s when Erskine stares at her, almost in relief and nodded. ‘ _Good.’_

* * *

 

(What did they do when they found out about Bucky?

Well-

They freaked out didn’t they? Don’t tell me- Steph went all, ‘ _Shit, we gotta save him Stevie! Even if it’s a_ thousand _miles away and there’s_ hundreds _of Nazis we can still do it! You just gotta belieeeeveee~~_

Shut it Tony,)

 

“-you _have to_ believe in me Steve, _why_ won’t you-“

“Miss.Carter has Stark on her side, and you’re still _not_ going with me Steph,”

He did _not-_

She has to admit, super muscles comes in handy when she can shove her brother around to look at her so he will stop being an _idiot_ about everything. She holds his shoulders steady, but he just stares right back at her, unmoving. They’re the same height now; she could look at him in the eye without craning her neck up or him looking down.

“Why the _hell_ not? I can _do_ this, those missions weren’t just for nothing-“

And Steve just _explodes_ , “Those missions _were_ nothing!” it’s similar to when Duke goes furious and stupid and _unreasonable, ”_ This is _war_ Steph, not those little _raids_ you do, you can get _killed-“_

-and the penny drops,

“So it’s true.”

He stops, but it’s too late since Steph’s already shaking her head slowly. “You think I can’t handle it. You think I’m still not strong enough.” She says it in a hitched whisper, like he’d just punched her in the gut.

“No Steph that’s not what I-“

“Is it because I’m a girl? Or is it just because I’m _me?_ ”

“ _Steph-“_

She tunes him out, her mind a mess of whirling thoughts and notions and _Steve of all people has no faith in her._ It starts with the disappointed look that oily man had thrown her way, starts when she questions herself, ‘ _why do I have to be disguised as a guy?’_ , starts when she compares the look Peggy sends her way with everybody else and notices that they _don’t trust her_ _because she’s a_ ‘ _her’._

Starts when she wished she wasn’t the 0.001%.

Stephanie shakes her head slowly, taking a step back. It shouldn’t matter. It _didn’t_ matter. That she was a girl. Who cares?

‘ _You….you’re a woman.’_

_‘-gender never mattered in the experiment, if yours was a success they would’ve injected it to hundreds of men after you-‘_

_‘-they weren’t even considering to take you out to fight Steph-‘_

Everybody apparently.

Her resolve snaps back. She reminds herself that Peggy had trusted her, that Duke had called her a _fighter,_ that she’s _strong_ because of the people who taught her that she is and she has had _enough_ of all of this.

“-you stay here where it’s _safe_ and I’ll-“

Steve’s still talking, she snaps to face him,

“I need your boxer briefs.”

“and you’ll- _what?”_

 She’s already striding ahead of him, facing ahead, face steady, “ _And_ your shield. Mind if I take one of the girl’s skirts?” She has a gun, two daggers and leather gloves so she thinks that’s enough. It’s just that she’d never felt comfortable kicking with her pants, her combat boots though, she’s definitely keeping that.

“Steph wait!”

She doesn’t look back, “Tell Peggy to bring two parachutes because I _am_ coming with you Steve Lawson.”

Her tone book no arguments but he still tries to stop her, pull her back, _anything_ , and then he sees the stubborn look in her eyes and sighs and tells himself that he’s a fool to think that Stephanie Rogers was anything less than a fighter.

 

* * *

 

(Fondue?

Fondue.)

“Stephanie! You came.” Peggy looks delighted and slightly worried but-

 (let’s not think about that,

Peggy was _worried_ ….

Yeah don’t go all blushy on me now,)

She looks questioningly at Steve but he just shrugs, “Couldn’t really stop her,”

Peggy sighed and smiled wryly, “Can’t imagine why,” she frowns then, “Are those _boxer briefs_ under your skirt?”

“Well I don’t want them peeking at my undies-“

A bomb goes out and when the floor gives out beneath her she has to remind herself that she’s on a plane not some machine that wants to _shake her brains out._

“Just to be sure _I’m_ captain of this mission alright,”

“Because you’re Captain America?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then,”

“Hey it’s okay Steph, you could be my trusty sidekick-“

“Not happening Lawson.”

Right when they’re ready to go down the intercom buzzes and Howards slinky voice came out, “So Miss Rogers, any chance of a late night fondue happening after this?”

Peggy raises her eyebrows at her and she shakes her head laughing, “I’ll think about it.”

Steve glares at the intercom though, “What? _, No-”_

They give Peggy a thumbs-up before diving in.

* * *

 

“So who is he supposed to be?”

“He’s……Captain America.”

“How ‘bout you?

“I don’t know, wanna take a guess?”

“……a badass bitch.”

“Nice.”

* * *

 

“ _Bucky!Bucky,BUCKY!”_

She tears through the corridors of the dank dark HYDRA base, breaking down doors and shouting his name until her throat is sore when finally, _finally_ she sees a familiar figure sprawled out on a metal table in one of the rooms and she rushes to him, whispering, “Bucky, bucky, you alright? We gotta get you outta here, Steve’s helping the others escape-” he groans back at her. She tries to lift him up carefully, raising his head to face her. He blinks his eyes open, “S-Steph?”

“Yeah, yeah it is, Bucky Its me,” she wants to _cry_ then because Bucky looks like _death_ , he’s pale as a white sheet, there’s dark red rings around his eyes and she could see needles and scalpels beside him, and she _knows_ he won’t ever be the same again. It’s in his eyes, how it’s glazed over, how he looks like he aged _centuries_ since he last saw her.

“No, no, you can’t be her, Stephs really really thin, but don’t tell her that-“ he started mumbling on her shoulder when she tries to haul him off the table. She kisses his cheek then and his eyes widens.

She puts her arms over his shoulders, supporting him, and after a moment he finally whispers, “ _Stephanie.”_ Like he can’t believe it, it’s fine since she had trouble believing it too sometimes, “You- you’re taller,”

“I know.” she says over his head and he laughs back. But it’s a rough choking sound that ends up in a hacking cough so Stephanie rubs slow circle down his back, “Easy there soldier…”

An explosion crashes outside and even breaks some of the glass windows and they need to _get out_. “Come on Buck, we have to go,”

She half carries half runs them through the corridors and she just hopes that Steve had a chance to get out safely with the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When she stares, horrified, as Schmidt peels off his _face_ to reveal a blood red monster with eyes glinting in madness she knows it’ll be in one of her nightmares. He laughs at her, and calls her a _stupid girl_ and a _waste_ because why did they use the serum on a mere _girl?_

She tries to stop him but he gets away in the end anyway, then Bucky’s on the other side, and there’s _explosions_ all around, he shouts,

“ _Stephanie! JUMP!”_

She does.

* * *

 

(She still has that crappy shield when they came back?

 Yeah. Didn’t really last long anyway,

Wow, must’ve been a great picture, red white skirt and all,

It was. She comes in with-)

an army bomber jacket, white tank top inside, black combat boots and a patriotic skirt, her hair tied up in a ponytail and _none of that matters_ because she’s battered, bloody, bruised and dirty with grime and ash but what makes it _great_ is the smile she wears with her because she has Bucky and Steve at her side along with their newly formed team and a hundred more men and they _made it back._

She’s tired, sick and pretty sure she has a gash under her ribs but its _fine_ because they’re back and she can see _Peggy_ running up to her now,

“You’re late.”

Stephanie grins, bringing a little of the mischievous Brooklyn girl out, “Better late than never.”

Everybody cheers then, and they all crowded up to Steve but she barely notices because then Peggy kisses her cheek and hugs her tightly and she can’t really think now, oh dear.

“Glad you’re back.”

“Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky shoots at her, three bullets down when they tried to test the new shield because _‘Wow Steph,_ right _after I told you NOT to follow me you go and plunge in a Nazi army base?’_   She says she’s sorry and he only grunts in response but that’s just Bucky and he’ll get over it.

 

 

 

 

She promises Peggy a dance after the war when she finds out that Peggy also played for the other team. When Bucky gives her a knowing grin she pushes him off the barstool, blushes ferociously, and swears that the next girl he meets, will be one that tries to kill him because she sure as hell wants to.

(She doesn’t realise how true her words were after much later.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

Steve is _furious_ at her when she tells him that he’s going to be Captain America of the Howling Commandos. In fact, everyone looks uncomfortable with the idea especially Bucky since he’d seen first-hand what Stephanie could do.

“Steph, you’re a better leader than me, didn’t you _see_ when we made it out of HYDRA?”

The others nodded along, with Jacques spouting something in French but she’ll take it as an affirmation. She shakes her head, “I said Steve will be Captain America,”

She raises her hand for silence when they protested and continues, “I never said he’ll be the one leading you.”

 

* * *

 

(So Steph was the Commando of the Howling Commandos?

When you say it like that….

And they _still_ bought that Steve was the super soldier Captain America?

Pretty much yeah, he certainly had the looks.

She kept the skirt?

Howard made her a new one, leather, I think. And for some reason it was a little shorter than the previous one….

Pffft. So she has the patriotic skirt _and_ the patriotic shield and they _still_ didn’t think any of it was fishy?

They thought that she was Captain America’s beau actually. Oh and boxer briefs, she still wore those.

Ah yes patriotic _boxer briefs.)_

 

She leads her team with efficiency and stealth, she makes strategies with them, eat and sleep with them and as they went to missions after missions she feels like they’re her brothers. Her own elite squad.

It doesn’t matter that they praise Steve all the time, that she sees Captain America films and merchandise flowing out because when Bucky claps her on the shoulder, when Steve gives her a thumbs up, when she sees her teammates treat her with _respect_ she doesn’t care one bit that the spotlights not on her.

 Kind of glad really, because when they’re too busy filming Captain America they won’t notice her slipping her compass open and staring at Peggy’s smiling face once in a while. If they did, Stephanie could imagine how they would react to that, and it’s definitely not kindly.

* * *

 

(Hey, you know if you wanna take a break-

It’s fine. I know how this goes Tony, just continue,)

 

 

 

 

The moment her fingers brushes against Bucky’s she has this _hope_ , that no, she is _not_ going to lose him; he _won’t_ fall because of her carelessness. She imagines that she’ll grab his hand tight, pull him in with all her strength and they’ll crash back in the train being relieved and laughing because they deal with this life-and-death situation _all the time_ it doesn’t mean anyone actually _dies_ …..right?

The metal railing breaks off and the hope goes out like a candle and Stephanie stops breathing.

Her fingers brushes against his but she _can’t grab it_ , instead she grabs cold air and she screams and howls his name but _it’s useless_ since the harsh winds swallows her voice as he falls and falls and his face is staring at her like he doesn’t understand why _the hell he was falling_. She was going to jump after him, her hand already on the shield ready to dive off into oblivion with _Bucky who just fell because of her, all her fault, all of it. It was **all her fault-**_

-Steve grabs her before she does it and he has to have three other men holding her but Stephanie just cries and cries out. She wants him _back._ She wants-

“ _BUCKY LET_ GO _OF ME BUCKY BUCKY-“_

 

 

 

 

 

(…..at least they got Zola,

y-yeah. That’s one thing, ahah,

You need to take a break.

No no Tony, I’m fi-

Break time!)

* * *

 

She remembers a German child she met once on a mission. They were supposed to clear up the base from any soldiers with the rest taken as prisoners.

 But she sees how _scared_ the boy was and in another world she might have steeled herself and taken him in but here and now she remembers how sometimes Steve gets thrown in at the wrong place at the wrong time and he’ll have this _puppy face_ that she feels if she ignores it it’ll be something akin to _murder_. Bucky wasn’t swayed by it at all.

Maybe that’s why when she tells the boy to run away she says, “There’s no one here.” after Bucky asks her. He wouldn’t be swayed if he'd knew.

Before Bucky comes though, she watches the silhouette of the boy as he sprints away and she is reminded of her mother’s face when she sees Steve running away from trouble. She remembers Sarah and her fond, loving look and maybe Stephanie just wanted to wish that the boy had someone that would look at him like that waiting for him too.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

She can’t get drunk. But Steve can, and he uses it to his full advantage.

She’s sitting on the floor beside Steve who is sprawled on the sofa, wasted and not waking up anytime soon. They don’t really know where they are, some abandon shack that had all this booze lying around. She doesn’t particularly care.

She’s humming a tune her mom taught her once to put baby Steve to sleep, running her hands through Steve sweat damped, white blonde curls, when Peggy comes in, her steps soft and cautious.

“Hey.” She kneels down beside her, reaching her hand out for Stephanie,

Peggy’s hands are warm, hot, _burning_ when they touches hers, and she realises her hands were trembling all this time. She’s cold, clammy and tired, so _so_ tired, that she just lets her hands go limp as Peggy strokes it with her warm fingers.

“Steph…”

She presses her thumb at Stephanie’s wet cheeks, smoothing it over and warming it. It feels like warm feathers at her face so Stephanie closes her eyes and dreams of her mother.

“I can’t get drunk.” She doesn’t recognise the voice that comes out of her throat. It’s scratchy, distant and empty.

She hangs on to Peggy, and Peggy tells her that they _need_ her now, that they can’t do this alone, that she needs to stand up again and _fight._

She knows that, but she can’t do it now. Maybe tomorrow. Just. Not now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She crashes in the HYDRA base with the memory of Bucky seared fresh in her mind and she thinks, ‘ _This ends now.’_

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Schmidt gets sucked in the Tesseract and Steph tries to comprehend what _the hell was going on,_ the plane heads to New York on an intent to nuke it with a really-

( _big ass bomb holy shit_

Tony, _language_.)

 “ _Steph? Stephanie? You can turn the plane around now we secured the base.”_

She’s surprised she’s not trembling, “The planes not going anywhere Peg.”

So _this_ is how it ends? The clouds looking pretty nice now actually, the wind whips her hair back and she’s sure she never saw the sea that close before.

“……I think I have to make a rain check on that dance, Peggy,”

_“St- Steph?”_

“I’m bringing her down.” She snaps open her compass, kisses Peggy’s face on it and holds tight.

She closes her eyes when she hears Peggy’s cries on the other side, she didn’t want to make her cry, its a stab to the heart and she wishes she wouldn't ever have to hear it again,

“ _Rogers, Sunday night, eight-thirty, don’t be late.”_

 Stephanie feels gravity pulling her down, she grits her teeth and tries not to think about how long she’ll make it before she drowns in the cold arctic water.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

There’s no reply, the signal’s gone.  She sighs, closes her eyes and waits for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Steph?”

Her eyes snapped open and she whips around because _no one was supposed to be here anymore what-_

“ _Steve_?”

He’s _there_ , panting heavily, wearing the Captain America uniform Howard made for him, looking so _so_ confused _._  The plane rocks forward and he stumbles towards her, grabbing her in a panicked scramble and she crumples when she sees how _scared_ he is. Why. Why why why was he-

(- _there? he wasn’t supposed to be there Tony, he was supposed to be with the others at base not with her not- not-_ )

“Steve what are you _doing_ here?”

He shakes his head, rubbing his hands down her shoulders, “I wanted to follow you, couldn’t go back without you-“

And they crashed into the unforgiving sea while Stephanie could do _nothing_ but hold Steve tightly to her.

 

* * *

 

In this world Captain America is dead.

In this world there is only Stephanie Grace Rogers.

* * *

 

(Oh _god_ it’s _this_ part,

I don’t think you have any right to complain Tony, _I_ suffered it as much as you did.

Doesn’t make it any less painful _.)_

 

 

 

 

“Miss Rogers, I’m Tony St-“

“Oh you’re Howard’s boy!”

 

And everything goes to hell.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3


	3. The Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She remembers a man asking her once when she was still ‘Badass Bitch Rogers’ if she was as strong as she was right now because of Duke. She stares at him and thinks about what she should say,

There are over a hundred things she remembers when she wakes up, but what she remembers the most is the feeling of frigid coldness and dense darkness that was suddenly _not there._

There’s a constant beeping sound beside her and she snaps to consciousness with a sudden gasp. She scrambles around at first, well, less scrambling and more fumbling since she can’t really move around with the tubes sticking at her everywhere.  

It’s a hospital room, and she’s been in too many to not notice that this one seemed a little off. It didn’t matter though, because when Stephanie turns her head she sees Steve, tanned, pure blond, sparkly boy Steve on a bed beside hers. She stops breathing and she notices that the heart monitor beside him doesn’t beep.

Steve’s body is _wrinkled, bloated_ and _ugly_ like he’d been thrown in a river for days and the only way they would have found him back is seeing his dead body floating around-

“ _Steve?”_

She hasn’t used her voice for a long time, it scratches along her throat. She wrenches out the tubes, hands white and shaking but stops when she sees his _face_. It’s disfigured beyond measure, a mess of wet boils and pale wrinkled skin and she wants to look away but she _can’t._

Her hand reaches over the others bed. She runs it slowly, unsteadily, over his cold skin before checking his pulse. A woman comes in with a plastered smile, heels clicking. The radio drones on about a baseball tournament she’s been to before.

“He’s dead.”

The plastered smile drops off instantly and Stephanie can feel the blood draining from her face.  She turns slowly at her, hands shaking, back trembling, “He’s _dead.”_

The woman looks shocked like even _she_ didn’t know why they placed her next to her _dead brother_ , and she toddles towards Steve. When she sees Steve’s face her clipboard falls with a clatter as she covers her face with a gasp and Stephanie decides that that is _it._

She falls out of the bed, stands up shakily, steps backwards, and dashes out, barefoot and all because this _couldn’t be real, no no no, what is **going on?**._

The walls are fake apparently, so it gives her hope that _everything_ in that room is fake, Steve _couldn’t_ be dead. It’s just not possible.

It’s just not- Not-

She hears loud cars, sees towering skyscrapers, covers her eyes from bright lights and gapes at all the _people_ , so many people and it’s just, not. Possible.

 ‘ _You’ve been asleep, Miss Rogers, for seventy years.’_ Nick Fury says.

Stephanie falls to her knees and thinks, ‘ _Oh.’_

 

* * *

 

 

(They thought she’ll be more comfortable if she had Steve beside her. They didn’t count on him being dead by the time she wakes up,

They didn’t count on him being dead at all Tony, and they thought she’ll be comfortable with Steve looking like _that?_

……..I didn’t say they were _smart.)_

 

* * *

 

The Avengers initiative brings her to mind of the Howling Commandos. But Coulson says it’s much, much more than that. And when he gives her their files she’s surprised that she’s not surprised because _Norse gods, spies, robots and super humans, of freakin’ course._

Coulson stares at her throughout the reading; actually he’s been staring at her since they _met._ He’s a fan, she could tell. She supposes finding out you’re childhood superhero wasn’t really ‘super’ and that he’s beau was his sister would really put a person in confusion.

“Miss Rogers?”

“Yes?”

“…..can I call you Captain?”

A _lot_ of confusion.

“W-well…”

 

 

 

 

She knows she’ll meet Anthony Edward Stark because she sees him in one of the files but she doesn’t know that he’ll be a total _jackass._ He shuts her off the moment she says ‘ _Howard’_ and suddenly she’s fending off sarcastic remarks and irritating insults that just _grates_ on her nerves. She doesn’t even _know_ Howard that well and suddenly she’s faced with this betrayed look like she just singlehandedly _killed Captain America._

So she does what she’s always done when she sees mouths flapping in her direction, she _spits back._

“Then what are you? Think you’re some kind of smart, rich, _hotshot_ that everyone loves?”

“I _am.”_

“Why the armour then?”

“What about _you?_ You’re _no one,_ not Captain America, not leader of the Commandos, _nothing._ Everything special about you _died_ a long, long time ago.”

He knows nothing, _nothing_ of what she’d endured, of what she had to do to get here.

(She doubts she even _wants_ to be here in the first place-)

She wants to _strangle_ the man, punch him in the face because she knows she’s _frustrated_ and everything in this century reminds her of him. He’s smooth, manipulating and _coy_ and she wants _so much_ to go back to her time-

“ _Big man in a suit of armour, take that away and you’re what?”_ she hisses and shakes her head. She’s tired, _tired_ of people underestimating her, misunderstanding her, “ _Just a selfish bastar-“_

Thunder rumbles overhead and she knows she just dodged a torrent of verbal onslaught from Tony. His face is calm, but his eyes are blazing and furious and she can’t find it in herself to be happy when Tony Stark nearly internally combust because of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She shakes Banner’s hands carefully, and he smiles quietly at her. When he bristles as she gazed at all the jets, soldiers and guns, she knows that for all the calm composure he portrays, he would’ve wanted to be anywhere _but_ here. She read his file, and when she makes the connection between the super soldier serum and him she feels a sinking in her stomach because, well, there goes another person’s life, _ruined_ because of her.

The doctor is alright though, doesn’t look at her twice and she’s grateful for that.

Black Widow reminds her of Peggy. She’s deadly, calm and fierce so Stephanie is extra cautious with her because she’d seen Peggy snap off a man’s arm without a second thought and so she knows this woman is nothing to joke around.

She nods at her and says, “Romanoff.”

Her eyes flickered at her just for a moment before she replies, her voice clipped and formal, “Rogers.”

Then, “You might want to hold your breath for this.”

Stephanie thinks she saw her let out a little smile when the _ship started flying what is her life anymore-_

But maybe it was just in her head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coulson had taken a shine to her actually.

“They call you ‘ _Badass Bitch Rogers’_ did you know that?” Right after he asks her if she could sign his Captain America trading cards and she smiles and said ‘ _Why not?’_

She thought they would have come out with a name like ‘Miss America’ or something along those lines but hey, this was definitely much better.

…..no accounts for _language_ though,

(In _every single universe_ fuck-

_Language, Tony_

_Arrghhh.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

She hears that the other spy had been compromised and she fears that Loki is _baiting them on_. His eyes are dark, mischievous and downright creepy. She’s sure he knows she shuddered when he smiled at her and said, “ _Ah, who are you then? Captain America?_ I _hear he’s dead, so eager to take his place?”_ she resists slamming her shield down his throat.

Thor, on the other hand, she doesn’t really know what to make of him. He’s not quite a soldier as he is a warrior but she sees his proud face and resolute confidence and knows that he wouldn’t ever bend and break from anything. She wishes she’s like him. Thor knows this world as much as she did, which is, obviously, not a lot, but it doesn’t bother him as much. She thinks that that too might be because he was a _god_ but she sees the way he looks at Loki and she runs away because now she knows that gods aren’t any better than humans. At least Thor still had _his_ Steve.

Stephanie realises that she doesn’t wish to be like him, she wishes to _be_ him.

(Because he was a god?

Because he still had a _family.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She doesn’t trust SHIELD and apparently so does some of her teammates.

…….well she calls them _teammates_ but she knows they weren’t really a _team_ in the first place. 

She sees the coming argument from a mile away, right when she slams the gun down between Banner and Stark and she is _pissed off_. She _hates_ putting her trust at things that aren’t true and she _has had it with this century._

Banner calls them a ticking time bomb by the time she notices he’s gripping the sceptre so tightly that’s she sees his knuckles going white. _Everyone’s_ arguing with _everybody else_ and she doesn’t notice the sceptre as it glows and thrums through their raised voices before she _snaps,_

_“Put on the suit and let’s go a few rounds,”_

“Sure about that _Miss Rogers?_ Don’t want you tripping in your _patriotic_ _skirt_ -“

“ _Put on the suit.”_

An explosion rocks the whole Helicarrier and Stephanie tells him, “Put on the suit.” before running to help the others.

“ _Yep.”_

She hesitates, and shouts back, “And that’s _Captain_ for you _Stark,”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“God dammnit Stark, speak _English,”_

“ _Right. Yellow. Lever.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Miss Rogers?”

“Rogers?”

“….Captain?”

“ _Cap, anytime now-“_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Its takes her a long, long time to swallow it down, just like the others she’d lost. She never really stopped mourning for them, but she learned to live with it.

 They didn’t really have much time now though.

She slumps down in her chair, staring at her gloves and she remembered Coulson asking SHIELD for it because he’s a sucker for everything Captain America related so he’d given her dark red fingerless leather gloves with stars at the back and a uniform that looks suspiciously like the former Captain Americas one but this one feels tougher, slimmer and more secure.

She’d smiled back and he looked so _happy_ so he had given her _more_ , straps around her back for her shield and if she ever needed a gun, belts at her waist for daggers and grenades, and she didn’t even have to ask before he showed her the skirt, staring proudly- (not smiling though, he rarely smiles but she could see the shine in his eyes-) at her and saying that he asked them to attach the _boxer briefs with it._

The thigh high combat boots was an afterthought.

She doesn’t cry but her eyes are glistening and red and she doesn’t notice when her hands started shaking. She notices that her hair was burnt at the tips and she remembers that she’d only ever kept it this long because Peggy wanted to, she brushes her hands over it and doesn’t remember where her hairband went and she should really cut her hair and Coulson’s dead.

Coulson’s _dead._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She thinks she saw the arc reactor flicker once but that’s just her. “First time you ever lost a man Stark?”

His face is pale but he smiles at her wryly nevertheless, “Sorry, Ma’am. We’re not all soldiers,”

She remembers then, the file she read about Stark when he was captured in Afghanistan, shrapnel’s through his heart and a machine on top of it keeping it from killing him. She remembers Duke with his cancer; smiling, laughing and acting normal as the sickness slowly ate him up inside. She’s been selfish and she wishes that they would have met in other circumstances-

(That would have been nice.

_Really nice._

Oh Tony, you think so too?

_Shut up.)_

-but this is here and now so she tries again.

“Stephanie.”

He looks at her oddly, “Call me Stephanie and I’ll call you Tony instead of _Mr.Stark.”_

She sees him flinch at ‘ _Mr.Stark’_ but is relieved when he nods back at her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They say New York’s been through worse but Stephanie can’t really see what’s worse than an _alien invasion._ She’s never been this glad to know that she had her shield with her and she’s even more glad when Banner comes and they’re actually _working together._

Hulk is fierce and strong and she would have never thought that the calm Dr.Banner would have had it in him. She doesn’t think of them as different persons, she thinks of Hulk as the furious Duke and Dr.Banner as the calm and collected one. She’s _so glad_ he’s on their side.

Natasha and her clicked, their fighting style almost the same with the exception of her using more force and Natasha using more technique but they meshed well.

When she’s beside Thor she feels _heat_ because he roars, smashes, and _fights_ like a lion and a skilled warrior but she’s a soldier herself so she doesn’t feel small beside him she feels _invigorated._

Stephanie spots the compromised one, Hawkeye, at the corner of her eye and she never seen anybody with that kind of accuracy before.

She gazes at Stark as he streaks through the sky, red and gold, his repulsors  shooting out beams, she still has her eyes on Stark as he chases after the bomb, carries it, heading for the portal and she thinks, ‘ _It’s a one-way trip.’_

She leads the team, she gives the orders, and _she_ makes the calls. Her hands shook as she says firmly, ‘ _Close it.’_

It reminds her of that time she carried the bomb down to the arctic sea, if she could survive it surely Stark could too? The portal shrinks and shrinks and she bit her lip until it draws blood, ‘ _It’s for the people_ ,’ but she’s only deluding herself, who was she kiddi-

Tony falls from the sky and Stephanie lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as she tries to stop her legs from giving out, but _Tony is still falling._ She nearly panics but no, Hulk catches him right when he was going to smash into the ground and Stephanie’s beside him in a flash.

“Tony?, _Tony?”_ His arc reactor is not glowing _at all_. She’d seen too many people die so she places her hands over the arc reactor willing for it to light up, for him to _breathe again._

She snatches her hand away when Hulk roars and Tony gasped awake.

Plumes of smoke rises up to the sky, but despite that, it’s still as blue as ever.

. 

.

.

.

.

.

“…..please tell me nobody kissed me,”

Stephanie laughs, says, “ _We won.”_  and smiles widely wiping away dirt from her face. Then, she leans down, kisses Tony’s forehead and,

“Well that wasn’t what I was expecting but-“

-she grabs Thor in a hug and he booms in laughter and swings her around right after she kisses his cheek,

“-Oh,”

She smiles when she pecks Natasha at the nose and Natasha stares at her, her face coming close to stunned surprise but is quickly hidden with a small grunt. She only gave Clint a buff hug, patting him at the back because she knows he’s feeling unsure about everything ever since Loki hit him with the sceptre by the look in his eyes but he hugs back reluctantly so Stephanie counts that as a win.

“Let’s take the day off tomorrow, we should _definitely_ take the day off tomorrow,”

She feels like Sarah Rogers, kissing away every bruise and scrape Steve and her had when they were playing outside. She cranes her neck up at Hulk and beams at him,

“Shawarma any- _Cap I don’t think that’s a good idea_ -“

She laughs at him when Hulk glares back and she holds out her hands, beckoning him,

“C’mere big guy,”

at least she didn’t get crushed.

 

 

(Why can’t _you_ be like her, I would take cheek kisses _any day_

If I did Tony, you’ll be late to all your meetings,

 _Ohhhhh_ )

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post-battle euphoria she felt was kind of embarrassing now that she thinks back on it. But she gives cheek kisses _all the time._ Bucky had _hundreds_ , it’s plainly platonic and she feels happy doing it because she fancies herself to be like Sarah and Bucky always said she had this mother-hen complex.  She still blushes when she thinks about it however, so when they ate shawarma together she stares resolutely at her kebab and finds herself concentrating on eating more than she should have. It doesn’t matter anyway since she dozes off through her tenth one.

A couple of days after that, they see Thor off with Loki in chains as they ascend (If the glowing beam from the skies were any clue-) to Asgard.

She waves everyone off and gets on her sweet new bike,

(She calls it Antonio.

Like _you_ don’t name your cars, Tony-

But she names it An _toni_ o _-_

_You call yours Mcqueen so don’t tell me that she can’t call hers-_

_An **toni** o)_

-revs it up and decides that she had a lot of catching up to do.

 

* * *

 

_She remembers a man asking her once when she was still ‘Badass Bitch Rogers’ if she was as strong as she was right now because of Duke. She stares at him and thinks about what she should say,_

_She thinks back and remembers when her mother, Sarah Rogers, who had worked every day, tirelessly, without fail. She remembers Duke’s soft smile when she’d fallen and scraped her knee and he’d kissed the bruise before bandaging it chasing the pain away. They were both strong as they are gentle, she was inspired to be like that, and it just goes to show that Duke wasn’t the only strength in her life._

(None of that matters though, she would have stood up and fight- even if she’d been an orphan- and no amount of strong male figures in her life would have changed that.)

_She says ‘I’m as strong as I am right now because I stand up for myself.’ and hopes the message went through,_

Now, she sees what she’d become. Captain America no less, and is relieved when she realises that nothing has changed really, just another name to add to the others.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s living in an average- (They call it average but to her, it feels like luxury she hasn’t felt since, well, since the _forties.)_ –apartment they provided for her and the first day she moves in Natasha comes with her because apparently, SHIELD doesn’t trust her without an escort.

Stephanie doesn’t notice it until Natasha strides in the apartment but now she realises that there’s less tension around her shoulders, she smirks and grins to her more often than before now and Stephanie just feels grateful that Natasha Romanoff isn’t out to get her.

She’s glad that Natasha feels more comfortable around her now, (not that you’ll notice it but Stephanie knows the difference between ‘calm and collected’ and ‘calm, collected and comfortable.’) she suspects that it started right when she decides to kiss her nose in her post-battle euphoria and that just makes her blush furiously because Natasha is _beautiful_ and she’s not just talking about her face.

“Steph you coming in?” her face goes scarlet when she realises that she’s been _staring_ at her this whole time and she murmurs back, “R-right…”

They’re bringing in all her stuff by themselves because she doesn’t want people to do the job she could’ve done herself. It’s when she accidentally knocks over one of the small boxes that she sees the photo.

It’s not hers.

 It’s a faded, grainy, monochrome photo and she immediately recognises the people smiling in it. She stoops down, picking up the photo gently like it’s made of feathers and she walks over to the sofa, sinking down on it staring at the photo. She doesn’t know how long she was at it but somewhere through she had snapped open her compass, putting the picture of Peggy’s smiling face beside the photo. It fits. _Of course_ it fits. It’s from the same damn photo.

“Stephanie? Where do you want to put the-“

She must have looked odd because Natasha walks to her cautiously and slowly. She sits down beside her carefully and looks at the photo on her lap. Stephanie’s voice is quiet and hollow, like she’s afraid if she spoke too loud the picture would crumble, “You found Steve’s old things? Who kept it?”

“Agent Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter.”

Of course. _Of course._ Oh heck she thought she was over this.

“Who were they?” Natasha is soft and careful, but Stephanie knows she would have known them already. She indulges her anyway, and maybe there was just a part of her that wanted to tell _somebody_ about them. It wasn’t like anyone would _want_ to know about her life. They died, along with everything else.

She strokes Bucky’s frozen smile, Steve’s unmoving grin and her beaming face that looks so _faded_ and _distant._ She has her arms over the both of them, and she remembers it’s when they just finished a skirmish and they found a bar near one of the locations so of course they crashed the place and went out flat drunk and wasted, excluding her of course.  She remembers Peggy’s disapproving frown and vividly recalls the time where that frown turned into a smile because she had slipped out the, ‘ _Peggy! You look absolutely_ wonderful _today!_.

She might have not been drunk but she was giddy _as hell_ and stupid from all the excitement and relief. Peggy stands beside Bucky, supporting him so he won’t fall face first on the ground and they were all laughing and smiling when someone strides in with a camera and snapped their picture.

Stephanie feels really really cold.

Her voice rasps when she answers back and there might be a little sob to it but only Natasha would know so it’s perfectly fine. She says, “They were…..” _My brother and my friend_ don’t really fit because she knows they were _more_ than that. She practically _raised_ Steve, and Bucky was a permanent part of her life ever since he decided to stick around that she can’t ever remember a time when he _wasn’t_ there.

“They were-“her breath hitches, she doesn’t cry, she just felt so- _so tired._

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to te-“ Natasha starts but Stephanie cuts her off with a shake,

“They were my _boys.”_

And that’s just it. They were _her_ boys and she had _failed_ them, let them both die by her hands and she did _nothing._

Natasha rubs circles down her back and Stephanie buries her face at her shoulder and tries not to think of white, pale, faces staring at her with anger, disappointment, and _fear._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

She only gets to stay in her nice new apartment for a couple of weeks before Tony drags her to his Tower where he says all the _other_ avengers were and really she shouldn’t be like this, living all ‘ _alone, and miserable. What am I if not a gentleman to offer a beautiful dame such as you to his humble home?’_ he gets the furious-Duke-glare for that. Judging by the grin he sends back though, it didn’t really work. 

And she wasn’t _lonely._ _Or_ miserable. She’s perfectly fine. The world had been calm, for a time, and she had taken that to her full advantage. She’d been visiting Peggy, all her old howling commandos, and their graves respectably. She ‘d been going to her brothers resting place every day, dropping those yellow tulips he liked so much.

She hangs out with Nat, sparring and chatting. Then in the evenings she takes out Antonio- ( _Hah,)_ for a spin and just drives anywhere before coming back in time for her to sleep. She’s definitely not lonely- ( _sometimes she stays outside just a bit longer than most and wishes she had more people to talk to)_ or miserable- ( _she wakes up in the dead of night, freezing cold, shivering and shaking and tells herself that’s its fine. It’s just another nightmare.)_

So she pushes his offer for another week.

He won’t _stop_ though; she’ll come back to her apartment to his smug ugly face at night and wakes up for her jogging in the morning noticing his sleek black limo outside her apartment. He whines and whines at her ear and when he’s _not_ he’s _complaining_ and that’s just _another_ level of torture.

He laments at the lack of technology at her place and _begs_ her to buy a _TV_ at least if she’s not staying at his. And Stephanie is just _one second_ from throwing him out of the window when he suddenly decides to get wasted.On her _couch_ no less.

“Tony _Stark_ , don’t you have a sweetheart waiting for you at that Tower of yours?”

He mumbles something incomprehensible, rolls to the other side and _god,_ she should just leave this man outside to die-

“The Towers empty.”

Stephanie stills. She places her grocery bag softly on the kitchen table. Tony sounded strangely sober for a man who had spent the whole night out drinking, if the smell was counting for it.

“And whys that?” she starts to take out the things out from her grocery bag, arranging them at one of the cupboard above the counter, her back facing tony from the living room. She doesn’t notice Tony getting up from the sofa, doesn’t see his head turning towards her, his eyes glazed. She hears his breath hitch,

“Because _Pepper left_.” 

It’s a silent, horrified whisper that she barely picks up and _wouldn’t_ if her super soldier hearing weren’t there. She hesitates, paused for a while, and resumes putting her grocery back. She opens the fridge with a click. “How long?”

There’s a long awkward silence and she thought that Tony had fallen asleep when he hears a grunt, “A while ago.”

Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts. She’s been in Tony’s file of course; she had been dating Tony for a long while now so she’d gathered _anyone_ who could stand Tony Stark more than 24 hours is a strong and steadfast person. Heck, she deserves a _medal_ , even _she_ couldn’t stand Tony without him giving her a headache for the next five minutes of his presence. (She forgets that she’s been with _Bucky_ all her life and he is much, _much_ annoying than Tony but maybe she just doesn’t want to remember anything about _Bucky_ in the first place,)

She fishes out some pills for him and pours a glass of water from the sink. The water sounds deafening in the quiet night right when she closes it and walks over to Tony. She places it beside him and opens her mouth to say, “I’m sor-“

“Don’t be.”

He takes it with a flourish, muttering a sullen ‘thank you’, before snuggling back at the couch, back facing her.

Stephanie stands there for a moment. And she wonders if they broke up because Tony was Tony or Pepper was Pepper or the world just wasn’t kind to them. She steps out, comes back with a blanket and a small pillow. She murmurs at him to lift his head up so she could slip the pillow under his head and she lays the blanket over him. Then, she wonders if it was all three.

“Next week.” She could hear Tony snoring already.

“I’ll pack next week.”

 

* * *

 

 

She was reluctant to leave her apartment, but the look in Tony’s eyes last time had scared her, reminded her of the fear in- She shakes her head, and definitely does not think about pale horrified faces reaching for her to save them-

She doesn’t want Tony to do anything stupid.

So she’d packed up, drove to Stark(Avengers?) Tower and waited for anyone to greet her now that she’s standing outside. She thinks about it for a minute, before striding in leaving her things outside first.

‘ _Welcome Captain Rogers-‘_

She doesn’t exactly jump up in surprise but it’s a close thing, she rather liked the British accent actually. ……she also wonders if there was a man somewhere in the building watching a feed of this and chuckling to himself.

‘ _I am JARVIS, Master Starks AI,’_

She finds out that Tony lives with a talking, highly intelligent robot thing in his Tower that is definitely _not_ empty if JARVIS was anything to count by. When she arrives at her room she gapes and wonders how much the bill would be if she had to pay for all of it. There’s even an _art studio._ When was Tony making all this?

She also finds out he has rooms for the other avengers, newly furnished, suited for everyone and ready for living. She feels bad actually that she hadn’t come sooner and that Tony had done all of this for them right when his break-up happened. Or maybe the reason he did it was _because_ the break-up happened.

‘ _He seeks company_ ,’ she realises and she gets set on persuading the others to join her too.

Tony’s out in a meeting though, and she’s curious about the massive TV down in the lounge so she files it in for later.

“JARVIS, do you know any interesting shows I might like?”

‘ _Plenty, Captain Rogers, would you like to see some of them?’_

She’s rather fond of him actually, besides the British accent that had her hooked the moment he started talking, JARVIS has been nice to her and she’d treated him more like a person because she still can’t shake of the picture of a man in a security room, watching on everyone, and because of _that_ JARVIS had been a little bit chatty with her.  She doesn’t know if it’s normal or not but she likes it and it had made her feel less alone.

She stares unflinchingly at the wide, black screen of the TV and wonders why Tony was so _insistent_ about it. She starts watching _Pretty Woman_ at first and was planning to get out for a jog after it was over but then after _Pretty Woman_ , there was _Fight Club_ so as a result, Stephanie doesn’t leave the sofa until it’s almost three in the morning as she goes through movies after movies throughout the centuries she’d missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a big cocoon-shaped blanket thing _wriggling_ on the sofa when Tony comes back from his meeting Pepper dragged him into and he considers taking more booze from the kitchen because _clearly_ he didn’t get enough for him to just black out.

Tony stares in horror and fascination as the _thing_ starts sprouting _arms_ at its head and he hears a muffled groan before a head pops out at the front and its-

“ _Stephanie?”_

She stares at the TV and then back at Tony before mumbling, “You said the human centipede was an interesting documentary….….”

‘ _I did try to warn you Captain,’_ JARVIS intones drily and Tony barks out a laughter and thinks that maybe he doesn’t need the booze after all.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stephanie is _smitten_ the moment she sets her eyes on Pepper. They meet when Pepper hears that all the Avengers are staying in the Tower so she wanted to check up on Tony to see how he was doing. Tony’s asleep though, it’s one of those rare moments where he finally has the good sense to _sleep_ _for more than two hours_ and maybe the river of alcohol he drank had something to do with it too. She is _so_ confiscating his booze/wine/beer rack for that.

She greets Stephanie with a steady smile and says that she could come tomorrow if everyone was busy today but Stephanie quickly cuts her off saying that she should _definitely_ stay the night. They get to chatting in the communal living room and Stephanie starts to admire her more and more because she finds out that this woman was managing the _company,_ in addition to Tony Stark and she doesn’t understand how she could cope with all of that.

In turn, Stephanie tells her about the time where her mother hadn’t married Duke yet, where there was less job opportunities for her because she was just a girl and her mother just couldn’t handle everything. By the end, they were holding hands; sitting close and looking at each other with this weird understanding look.

“I couldn’t handle it too.” Stephanie sees how pale she looks, the dark shadows under her eyes, wonders how she didn’t noticed it before. Wonders if Pepper is handling the break-up as bad as Tony did, “The company’s okay, the company is _fine_ , but Tony….”

She shakes her head, holding on to Stephanie, “I wanted to be the one to support him, to understand him, to _help_ him but I _can’t_.” Stephanie wants to wipe the welling tears from her eyes, “I tried everything but sometimes it just _scares_ me that he’ll die by something or the other and I couldn’t _help him_ by letting go so he could find someone who _could.”_

She smiles shakily, “So I did.”

A soft sigh,

“I let go.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony is frowning at them, confused, when he sees Stephanie hugging Pepper like they’ve been friends for years, kissing each other’s cheeks and whatnot. He’s pretty sure he sees Stephanie’s hands slide down Peppers back when they embraced and _what in the world happened last night?_  

When they waved goodbye and Tony is left with a set of instructions of what _not_ to do from Pepper, he looks back at her,

“Why were you groping my ex-girlfriends ass?”

Stephanie sputters, “W- _what?_ I- I wasn’t-“

Tony smiled wryly at her before heading back to his workshop,

“It’s just a joke Cap,”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Stephanie.” Tony looks back, staring at the figure standing awkwardly outside of his workshop.

It’s not a question as much as it is a statement, but his face is confused and puzzled so she should probably smoothen out some of those lines on his forehead.

She waves hesitantly at him from behind the glass.

‘ _Sir, Captain Rogers requests permission to enter the workshop,’_

Tony pauses. His sweaty, hair and clothes in disarray and he probably doesn’t look any better than yesterday when he’d crashed into an oil tank trying to save a kid that strayed too far into the fight. There wasn’t any fire _thank god,_ but getting drenched in oil gunk is definitely not a way to go.

“We should……probably let her in,”

The glass slides open and Stephanie steps in, Tony notices she has her sketching pad with her. He shrugs and picks up his welding torch again, snapping back his goggles on. “Needed something Cap?”

She snaps back at him, blush creeping in when she’s caught gawping at the workshop. She shuffles her feet, staring down on the floor, “I…..wanted to say sorry,”

Tony freezes, “For what?”

She scratches her neck awkwardly, glancing at Tony before staring back at the floor, “For earlier,” she clears her throat, “For being, er, an asshole when we met,”

He gapes at her, and he doesn’t really know how to react to that really because if _anyone_ was an asshole when they met it was probably just _him._ He wants to laugh, _wow_ , how _kind_ was Stephanie to say sorry to an asshole and even _lying_ to said asshole that _she_ was an asshole, and he’s even rambling inside his own head right now-

(You tend to do that a lot Tony,

Oh hush you,)

And he _does_ laugh, he shakes his head and tells her that if she was an asshole than he was a jackass. ‘ _It’s a long time since then,’_ he says. She smiles hopefully at him, ‘ _because we’re friends now right?’_

 Right.

 

 

Tony asks her what she thinks of the workshop later and she replies with a straight face, “Dirty.”

She tilts her head to the side, “And messy.”

She opens her sketchbook and smiles, “It’s _perfect._ ”

 

 

 

 

 

She leaves to make dinner for the team, -its bagel-movie-spaghetti night- and Tony sees her sketchbook left opened on one of the chairs he left for her. He sees his face, eyes full with concentration, but mouth quirked in a grin. He sees his workshop, everything drawn in vivid detail that he thinks her drawing looked _way_ more real.

He flips open a new page and he sees other drawings, Natasha sharpening her knives in the gym, Clint knocking an arrow at the Towers roof, Thor gazing at the skies as if he could see something out there no one couldn’t on the balcony, and Bruce, as he rushes to and fro at his lab, bubbling test tubes and calculations on the tables.

He doesn’t really know why he feels disappointed.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Hey Steph,” she needs to remind herself that Hawkeye is highly dangerous when he’s bored but she answers him anyway,

“Yes?”

“D’you like Tony?”

The coffee machine stops buzzing for a moment,

“Of course,”

There’s a _thump_ as a mug hits heavily on the matted counter,

Stephanie smiles, “He’s my friend.”

The coffee machine buzzes again,

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were all sprawled in front of the TV watching Sleepy Hollow when the team concluded that Stephanie is, as Clint had always suspected, bisexual.

They were on the discussion on Johnny Depp, whether anyone would still date him now that he’s older rather when he was young and Stephanie says, “I would date him, he’s not _that_ old.” She continues on saying that she’d date older people before and nobody except Stephanie notices when Tony left somewhere through the conversation.

“Oh, did I say something wrong?” she asks anxiously when she sees the empty spot he left behind.

Clint grins, “Nah, he’s just really confused right now,”

“Watch Pirates of the Caribbean next, Johnny was really hot on that one,” Natasha pipes up and Stephanie thought nothing about it since then.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Steph, do you wear dresses?”

She stares at the phone, careful not to touch the screen so she wouldn’t disconnect the call; there had been _too many_ accidents already. She looks down at her bootcut jeans and her blue T-shirt before saying, “Not usually,”

She thinks about it before, “But I _do_ like them,” dresses are pretty and she used to wear them all the time, but now she felt that jeans and T-shirt were more comfortable, with the occasional skirt thrown in.

“Nice. Alright.”

“Why?” Stephanie grins, “Wanted to buy one for me?”

She only hears a shuffling sound on the other end and she starts to panic because oh _hell no,_

“Tony, it’s just a joke you weren’t serious right, _Tony-“_

He hangs up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Steph, _Steeeephhhh,”_

She shakes her head slowly and shakes out her boxing glove, throwing them down at her bedside table. Her clothes are sticking to her with sweat and all she wants to do right now is peel it off and have a warm shower but when she sees Tony lumbering down her room she knows she’ll have to wait awhile. He’s wasted. Again. This time on her _bed._

She flops down on the bed, sitting down beside Tony where he’s sprawled open staring at her. He wriggles so he has his head on her lap and Stephanie sighs heavily before pressing her fingers down on his forehead, massaging it, her other hand strokes his hair and she concluded that this is her life right now, ‘ _What have I ever done in my past life?’_

“Avoiding responsibilities again Stark?” she drawls. Tony only groans in satisfaction when Steph starts massaging his shoulders, and _how is this her life?_

‘ _Steeephh I can’t take ittt. My whole body just hurts so baddd I can’t sleep, everything hurtsss helphelp-'_

She probably shouldn’t have pitied him that time he ended up drunk and bruised from a fight they had-

 (Flying flaming rocks right?

That’s the one.)

-but what’s done is done and now she’s officially Tony’s massaging machine.

“Pepper’s out to get me…” he mumbles back. Stephanie murmurs him to get up so she could do his back and she tuts, “I should probably call Pep right now...….”

Tony _wails_ at her like he’s freaking _dying_ , and he sobs and shakes with ‘ _Have mercy’s’ and ‘Steph- Steph please’s’_

“Alright, alright shut _up.”_

He beams at her, she doesn’t know how his head ended up at her shoulder but she just sighs. It’s easier for her to work on his arms anyway.

“You stink of beer.” It’s true, she feels like she’s holding a living, breathing bottle of booze.

“And _you_ stink of sweat.” It’s slurred and slow but he still managed to look at her with that pointed Tony-Stark-Is-always-right look and Stephanie laughs when she wonders if he also does it in his sleep.

He burrows deeper in her shoulders and she could feel little whiffs of breath leaving his mouth at her nape, “It’s a nice smell.” He whispers it to her and she couldn’t help the shudder running up her spine. Tony’s _drunk_ though so she doesn’t think about it.

When his breathing slows down to a quiet snore she carries him bridal style, head tucked between her shoulder and her neck, to his room. Clint sees them on the way out of the elevator and says, “Well I always knew you’d be the dominant one,” and walks out like nothing happened.

Stephanie is _drowning_ in her blush but this is Clint and he makes jokes like he breathes air so she _doesn’t think about it._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Howard Stark had been a _horrible_ father,

(Yeah, well no _shit-_

Tony,

Nonono don’t say it, don’t fucking _start-_

**_Lang-)_ **

-she never thought he would’ve done such a bad job on taking care of his son but it takes a night out in the bar, ten giant cups of beer and Tony leaning heavily on her shoulder to finally know that he had. Done a bad job as a father. A terrifically amazing bad job that when she hears Tony spill more and more of his childhood memories down her shirt she restrains from glaring at no one in particular and regretting that moment where she _did_ say yes to fondue night-

(She _did?_

Oh yeah but Peggy came too so you could imagine how that went,

No. What do you _mean?_ Were they having a threeso-

_Tony,)_

She only gave Tony a light hug, patting his back and kissing his forehead before paying for the tab and sending both of them to the Tower.

“ _He never tells me about Captain America you know,”_ he sighs quietly, looking out of the window of the cab Stephanie waved by, “ _It was always, Rogers this, Rogers that, I felt frustrated actually. Because, you know, Rogers wasn’t the ‘hero’._ ”

He looked at her, “ _But you were more than what he said you were, it took me a while to see the real ‘hero’.”_ Stephanie is pretty sure Tony has had enough for one night because he would _never_ sound that cheesy-

He leans in, grinning mischievously at her, and whispers like he’s going to share some big secret, “ _I jacked off to your brothers poster though-“_

_“…..”_

He had the audacity to _giggle_ after that. Stephanie files this incident to, ‘ _Things she does not want to remember for the entirety of her existence on earth’._ She stares blankly at Tony still grinning at her before poking both his eyes out.

He howls in pain and Stephanie looks straight ahead, smiling politely at the taxi driver after he gives them strange looks at the back.

Tony would thank her for this when he wakes up tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You are better,” Tony stares at her groggily when he wakes that day. Stephanie puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes it softly, “You are better than he ever was.”

Tony blinks slowly, “I know.”

Stephanie smiles softly, “ _Good.”_

* * *

 

Tony finds Howards old clips when he decides to throw some of the junk in his father’s old workshop out. It wasn’t in his writing though. It’s written: _‘Stephanie G. Rogers’_ at the front and he wonders if he should look over it first. 

He stares at it for a long while then he tells JARVIS to call Stephanie.

 

 

 

She comes down a moment later and tells him that it wasn’t her handwriting either. He sees her eyes glaze over.

“It’s Peggy’s.”

They set it on the old projector, Tony brought some popcorn out and when Stephanie gave him a sceptical look he shrugs. It flickered for a moment, and then she sees her face, black and white, looking down on the camera with a frown. Bucky’s voice laughed at the background, ’ _Aw, Steph come on, I didn’t exactly get this for nothing you know,’_

It’s when she was still that skinny short ugly girl in Brooklyn, but when Steph looks back at her own face she thinks, ‘ _Oh,’_ because in all the pictures she’d seen of her from the forties, this is one of the happiest she’d seen herself. The other was the faded photo she keeps in her wallet and really nothing could compete that. (It’s kind of sad when she thinks about it like that.)

‘ _No Bucky, you didn’t ‘get it’ you nabbed it from him, just give it back or I swear I’ll tell Duke-‘_

There’s a roar of laughter and the video jogs and blurs showing Steph trying to catch Bucky. It buzzes for a while, flickering here and there, before it shows them kissing, on the mouth at one of the table tops.

There’s heavy breathing and a whisper, ‘ _Close it.’_ It blinked black.

There’s an awkward silence before it flickers back on now showing her time in the army with Peggy. But her head is still stuck on that time she dated Bucky and reminiscing how nice it’d been before they broke up. It hadn’t felt right, it had felt like an extend of their friendship and they both felt that where they were now was more comfortable than any other relationship.

She glances at Tony, almost forgetting he was there. The room was dark and everything felt nostalgic. She blinks when she sees that Tony was already looking back at her, he’s staring, shoulders stiff. “Sergeant Barnes?”

She nods, Tony looks back at the screen where it shows Steph trying to catch up with the other soldiers when they had their PT. His face is unreadable, “You were together? I thought you had your

other beau,” he gestures to Peggy on the screen, shouting commands to the soldiers.

Stephanie tilts her head to the side, “For a time,” she munches on a popcorn, “Didn’t work.”

“Well,” she sighed, “I did have Peggy.” She stared forlornly at Peggy’s face escorting her to the testing room, “But then suddenly, I didn’t.” she shrugs, and flinches when she hears the first gunshot, “It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter.”

Some nights it does. A lot.

Tony only hums in comprehension and he smirks, “Didn’t know you were that short,” she scowls back, “The fact that I’m taller than you now really disturb you doesn’t it?”

He punches her shoulder hissing, “ _Shut up.”_ and Stephanie laughs back.

There’s a beat of silence. Then,

“And cute.” He looks away, “You were real cute then,” his tongue is on the tip of saying ‘- _too.’_ but he swallows it down when Stephanie scoffs in disbelief. She shakes her head and smiled wryly, “Bucky said that too,” she looks at Captain America as he smiled widely punching Hitler in the face, “Never believed him,”

Tony’s opening his mouth to say something else but Stephanie jumps up staring widely in disbelief and groans when she sees one of the USO girls kissing Captain America’s beaming face on the cheek. “They had that on _tape?”_

Tony stares at her, puzzled so he rewinds it looking at it closely and _holy shit_ -

He _cackles_ in laughter, “ _You were one of the USO girls? I am SO keeping this-“_

“It was one time. ONE time.”

 

 

 

 

 

They even showed her in full battle mode when she was planning, strategizing and fighting with the Howling Commandos. She smiles fondly as the video showed her kissing each and everyone’s face, Dum Dum, Gabe, Morita, Dernier, Bucky, Falsworth and Steve who hugs her and kisses her cheek back. They were dirt-stained, clothes burnt here and there and she remembers feeling battered and bruised but so _relieved_ that they made it. It shows her looking at the camera, winking at it before blowing a kiss and _wow_ that must’ve been one of her post-battle euphoria, but its fine since she remembers that the kiss was for Peggy-

“Tony?” he’s coughing, and he mumbles something about choking on one of the popcorn so Stephanie rubs his back and waits till he rides it out.

 

 

 

It ends with Peggy sitting in her office looking out of the window. She looks older, lines on her face and shadows under her eyes. She looks at the camera,

 _“It’s been ten years Steph.”_ Her voice is cracked, quiet and hollow. And she shakes her head, _“When you see this-_ “she laughs softly, looking down, hiding the tears in her eyes, “ _If ever that is,”_

She smiles and looks up. This time she doesn’t hide the tears, _“Remember that I had always and will always love you.”_ Stephanie could see her hands shaking and she feels hers doing the same, “ _But nothings changing and I have to take the first step Steph,_ ” Stephanie finally sees pictures cluttered on her office table and she tries not to cry when she sees its all her, _“And-“_ her breath hitches, _“and when it’s your turn,”_ she leans in, a grin on her beautiful _beautiful_ face, “ _I know you won’t hesitate to take that first step.”_

Its late midnight and the sudden silence when the video blinks shut only seemed to make her ragged breathing that much louder.

Tony moves first, reaching a hand out to her, “Steph-“

But she stands up abruptly, shakes her head mutely and walks back to her room by herself.

She curls in bed thinking of everything and everyone and concluded that Peggy didn’t really know her that well if she thought she’ll make that first step so easily. Then again, when she was with Peggy _everything_ had seemed easy.

She shuts her eyes.

 

 

 

 

She opens her room the next day to a set of oil paint set she’d always wanted and Stephanie, in turn, makes extra pancakes for Tony that morning.

She gazes at him inhaling his black coffee and considers taking the step forward.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony isn’t really in denial, but it wouldn’t even matter considering Stephanie’s state of obliviousness is on extreme levels. 

He sees Clint snickering and whispering at Thor after they’d fought some man who calls himself the-

(What was it?

Er, Super Sonic Sound? Speedy?

 _Ah yes,_ ‘Speed of Sound Sonic’

_It’s like saying a ‘round circle’ oh god.)_

They’re both eyeing Stephanie who is beaming at Hulk again, and _are they playing tic tack toe?_

He couldn’t make sure of it because the next thing he knows Clint is striding over to Stephanie and asking for a little kiss on the cheek. She shrugs, smiles, and says ‘ _Why not?’_ and of course she’d say yes it’s _Stephanie._

Tony sees it all in slow motion, Stephanie closing her eyes and leaning in to peck his cheek, Clint having this suspicious devious smirk as he _turns his head around so she’d kiss his lips instead-_

Tony blames it on suit malfunction when the repulsors shoots down Clint fifteen meters backwards with an _‘oof’_ and he smiles inside his armour as Clint groans in pain and Stephanie stares at them back to back, puzzled.

Clint owes Thor twenty Pop tarts the next day and he nurses his bruise until the end of the week.

 

* * *

 

Its late autumn and it’s almost been a year since he invited the avengers to live at his Tower.  He’s leaning down, his hand one centimetre away from Stephanie’s soft lips. She’s sleeping on the couch again, her hands curling around a blanket that’s draped over her. He thinks she feels that the bed in her room is too big for her and yes, he feels like that some days too, opting to fall asleep from exhaustion in his workshop rather than lying down on a cold empty bed. But then again, what does he know?

Its four thirty in the morning and Tony had been frozen there for a nigh over thirty minutes.

She mumbles suddenly, and he steps back, but when he hears her snore again he reaches out, knuckles half a centimetre away from brushing her cheek-

“Why don’t you tell her?”

 Natasha’s beside him and he yelps, jumps back and tells himself he should get used to this by now, Natasha and Clint are freaking _ninjas._

She stares at him unmoving, and he scowls, “How is it any of your business?”

Natasha actually cracks a smile but it’s certainly _not_ one of those rare honest ones, he gets the deadly Black Widow smile in full package, daggered eyes, stiff jaw and all. She says softly, “It’s _my_ business when Stephanie is involved and I swear Stark if you’re just doing this to replace Pepper I’ll-‘

‘So _that’s_ why,’ Tony laughs dryly, “No no no, who do you think I am? I’m selfish not cruel.”

She relaxes, but she still has her eyes on Tony as if saying, ‘ _So why?’_

He sighs and drops hands down, “It wouldn’t end well.”

He gazes at Stephanie, memorising the curve of her lips, the length of her eyelashes, how the light reflected on her golden  blond hair and her charming strong build that had him tingling ever since he saw her sparring with Natasha, muscles rippling, sweat dripping.

“It never does.”

 

* * *

 

(……that’s it right? That’s all of them?

What? _No_. We didn’t even get to the part where Bucky comes back,

Ah. Yes.

Rain check on that? We could go to the movies,

Okay, why not.

Yes! I heard _Dawn of justice_ is premiering-)

 

 


	4. The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She tries to ignore it but it happens anyway and her world crashes around her when he says back, eyes wild and confused,
> 
> “Who?”

On Sundays Stephanie wears dresses.

It’s a different one every week but since she tried to stop Tony buying her more maybe it won’t be. Thank god for _that._ She makes sure she’s neat, she doesn’t tie her hair up, lets it down and she wears pearl necklaces and gold bracelets. Its either Clint or Bruce that’ll see her making breakfasts first, and since she have to leave early she makes it at dawn. She thinks Natasha also knows but Stephanie rarely sees her so she knows Natasha just doesn’t want to show herself.

They either say ,” _Visiting again?”_ or , “ _Nice dress,”._ There was one time where Thor spots her leaving and she remembers him booming out that ‘ _a wonderful maiden has stepped in the Tower!’_. She doesn’t know if he’s joking but then again Thor’s honesty is sometimes mortifying so she holds on to that. It tones down after that anyway, he’ll pat her back and offers to braid her hair and she’ll sit quietly, reading, while Thor works behind her on the sofa, (He’s surprisingly good at it but then, she remembers the stories about warriors and braided beards and thinks, _Ah-)_. Tony’s always down at his workshop in that hour but she never minds.

Today, she wears a baby blue sundress –the boots stays on though, the boots never goes away- and light make-up. When she pets down her dress to get on her bike she blinks when she sees Tony staring at her at the entrance.  

He blinks. “Lady Liberty out on a stroll?”

She puts her helmet down, “No.” She stares back at him. He tilts his head to the side. “What is it?”

He shrugs, “Nothing.”

(Yep. Totally not awkward-)

Stephanie counts till three before,

“Heading somewhere? Sunday church?”

She sighs, “I’m visiting Peggy.”

Tony’s rubbing his hands together for some reason, Stephanie could say he was nervous but this is Tony Stark she’s talking about, “Oh.”

Stephanie knows she’s not going to need her bike the minute Happy steps out of the limo. Tony grins, “I was heading out too actually, care to take a ride?”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Tony’s standing by the door munching on a blueberry snack bar outside of Peggy’s room. He’s smiling and waving, laid back. She sees him tapping his shoes though so she knows he’s feeling restless.

She nods at him, “Come in,”

He looks at her surprised and he raise his hands up, “Hey it’s okay, I’m fine here, I don’t want to-“

“Its fine.” She smiles at a nurse that’s striding in the room and says again, “Come in.” Stephanie’s using her Captain voice on him though, so Tony didn’t really have any choice but to shrug and walked in beside her.

She pats his back when she sees him staring at the woman on the bed, “Its fine Tony, I told her about you…..well if she remembers, but It’s okay she likes a charming man,”

He grins at her, “So you admit I’m charming?”

She walks ahead of him murmuring, “Not on your life.”

When the woman flutters her eyes open and exclaimed ‘ _Steph!’_ he sees her eyes watering when she continues with, ‘ _you came back-‘_ and he understands.

Every Sunday Stephanie visits Peggy. Every Sunday Peggy meets Stephanie Grace Rogers for the first time in seventy years and every Sunday Stephanie rewinds everything like it’s a broken record but she revels in it. Holds her hands, kisses them, kisses her cheeks and her eyes, now old, wrinkled and sunken. She smiles for the hundredth time and says, _‘I wouldn’t leave my best girl alone on her dance now would I?’_

He watches it all and understands that Stephanie wanted something different; she didn’t want to rewind it anymore, she wanted to make something new. She introduces Tony and he greets her with as much flair he could muster and Stephanie _beams_ when Peggy laughed with, ‘ _such a nice boy,’_ and ‘ _good-looking too,’_

She goes quiet when Peggy stares at something behind her, and looked at her back, eyes widening.

“ _Steph?”_

It rewinds again.

 

 

 

“I’m sorry.” Stephanie head is down, looking at the floor guiltily. She knows Tony already had it all figured out, she thinks that she’d used him.

She doesn’t know that he would have done it either way.

 He grins at her in turn and says that after this, when he’s finished with his meeting, he could drag her to see Rhodey as pay back. Stephanie blinks and says, ‘ _Alright.’_

Tony has it all planned out. Rhodey would be all awed and geeky over ‘ _Badass Bitch Rogers’_  and he’d have more time to- uh- talk?- with Stephanie because she’d be too uncomfortable with Rhodey smothering fanboy hormones all over her and it’d be _his_ win-

Except that he’d completely forget that they’re both experienced soldiers and apparently are _both_ awed and geeky over _tactics, strategies_ , and _weapons._ He’ll trade an eye just to leave them alone as they swapped grizzly war stories and _god_ now his showing off _battle scars_ and Steph’s is all starry eyed and brushing her fingers down the scar at his ribs and Tony _hates it, t_ he level of bro-ness emanating from them is so overpowering he thinks he might just-

Actually now Stephanie is lifting her dress up saying something or the other about bomb shrapnel going through her thighs and he decides that’s it’s _definitely_ time to leave.

 

* * *

 

(Then she gets a call from Fury,

Oh boy, she finds out about that big ass killing machine that’s gonna kill everyone right?

Right. SHIELD becomes a den of snakes then and she-

Wait wait wait. Do you remember this?

Uh-

‘ _Before we start, who wants to get out first?’_

I _do not_ sound like that-

Of course you don’t.

Don’t look at me like that, and she didn’t actually say that,

Oh?

She said-)

“Well now, you wouldn’t crowd over a _lady_ would you?”

The man behind her makes the first move. She breaks his arm.

(Yeah yeah! And then she _blasts_ her way out with Antonio and she brings down a fucking _plane –don’t you dare say it-_ and-

Wait. _Wait Tony,_

What?

You forgot him, :(

Him? Wh - Oh. _Oh no I feel immensely guilty-_ )

 

* * *

 

“On your left.”

“Hm,”

“On your left.”

“Ladies first I might say,”

“….on your left,”

“ _Rogers-“_

Stephanie laughs at him and he scowls back.

Sam Wilson is one of the people who’d helped her with the nightmares, the other being mainly Natasha and the team but he’d been the one who had come up first. Seen her staring down by the old lake a little too long and asked her if she ever been in a war. He probably knows by then that she was Captain America or Badass Bitch Rogers, or whatever they want to call her, but he didn’t leave so she spills and he buys both of them coffee.

 She’s done a couple of laps already but she figures that she should get to real running and finish her warm up. Sam looks exhausted though, so she stops to give him a break.

Then Natasha pulls up to them with a car and tells her that she’s going to visit the new exhibit in the museum called, ‘ _Great Women of the Olden days,_. 

Stephanie laughs drily but Sam is choking with laughter and she pouts when Natasha joins in too.

 

* * *

 

( Okay. Back on track, right so,

She finds Nick Fury at her old apartment and-)

The Winter Soldier is a dark hollow eyed man with a metal arm and a muzzle. She threw her shield at him and he caught it. He just _caught it_ , grab it like she was just _playing Frisbee_ with him, not throwing it with all her force and _no,_ a _normal_ human being wouldn’t even be a able to move that fast-

She remembers the blistering cold winter wind.

Fury dies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They meet him the second time but this time Natasha’s with her and so is Sam so it couldn’t be that bad.

His moves are fast, fierce and efficient. She fights him with all her strength and tries to ignore the way his eyes are empty and _cold_ , the way it feels like she’s fighting off an _animal_ that wouldn’t hesitate to bite her neck off and- and the way she manages to rip his muzzle off, the way her heart _stops_ and she breathes in the snow and ice of _that time_ , the way her voice shakes as she whispers,

“ _Bucky?”_

She tries to ignore it but it happens anyway and her world crashes around her when he says back, eyes wild and confused,

“ _Who?”_

 

 

 

 

 

Zola’s voice is ants and scorpions in her ears. It’s scrabbling, scraping, and _digging_ with thoughts of Schmidt, SHIELD and _HYDRA._ Stephanie feels like all that she’d done was for _nothing._ They are still here, like a _virus_ that spreads over everything she cares about and they’re larger than ever before and she _hates it, she hates putting her trust at things that aren’t **true.**_

 

 

 

 

Turns out, Fury’s _not_ dead and really she shouldn’t be this surprised.

She wants to fix it, all of it.

So she walks off with her red and blue leather skirt and her old bomber jacket from the Great Women exhibit and runs off with Natasha and Sam to bring down the-

(-big ass killing machine that’s gonna kill everyone-

Tony please-)

–and hopes that she’ll knock some sense into Bucky without breaking down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s bruised, battered and bloody and so is Bucky but she keeps on trying,

“ _You are James Bucky Buchannan Barnes.”_ A black eye.

“ _You found me in an alley-“_ A punch and a split lip.

“ _Stephanie-“_ a fist at her stomach knocks out all the air in her but she gasps, “ _But you’d call me Steph-“_

 _“ShutupshutupSHUTUP”_ he roars it out landing a kick at her ribs and he pins her to the floor.

She coughs up blood as he tightens his hold on her neck.  Her sight is hazy now but she sees the tortured confused look in his eyes so she thumbs the edge of his jaw with shaking hands and bloody knuckles, “It wasn’t your fault.”

She chokes and she hears glass shattering, the floor tipping and her shallow breathing,

“You were just _there._ ”

His breath hitches and he lets go of her neck.

They fall to the ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

Bucky drags her over the bank and cradles her head to his chest before kissing her cheek. He brushes her hair over her ears, places her carefully on the ground and walks away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Stephanie wakes up in a hospital room beside Sam and hums along the song in his ipod. She feels the sunshine at her face, Sam talking over her ear and Natasha gazing quietly at her. Bandages and tubes cover her but she just feels relieved that it’s all over.

(She doesn’t admit it but she thinks about Bucky too, but that’s just too painful so she pushes it away….)

……it never worked.

 

* * *

 

She feels like the world is holding its breath, like something was coming but it’s just taking its time.

She finds Tony because she hears about the Mandarin incident and her eyes looks at him closely to see if he was really okay. He shrugs it off, giving her an unconvincing bright smile and tells her that he just needs time.

Stephanie doesn’t push, she’s just glad that Tony and Pepper are fine.

She worries about them but she didn’t know that it goes the other way too. Tony comes in her room that evening, stands by her door with an awkward smile. He grins and tell her that he never liked SHIELD anyway and that, that if she ever-

“-wanted to talk, I’m down by the workshop,” he gives a tight smile and she replies with a soft one.

She doesn’t see his shoulders shaking when he leaves.

 

 

 

The world finally exhales a long and relieved sigh when Stephanie wanted to jog to Coney Island for her morning run.

( _Coney Island?_

It gets boring circling around New York you know,

_Jesus.)_

She’s sweating and breathing hard by the time she stands in front of the cyclone. She smiles brightly at it, drinking a bottle of water in one take, gasping out and throwing it at the nearest trash can. There’s water dribbling down her shirt but she wipes away the one at her mouth. She hears the click of a camera.

It’s normal, she guesses. It’s not everyday anyone gets to see Captain America.

She still finds it embarrassing though, so she tries to hide the red rising from her neck when,

“Soaking in all the attention then Steph? This isn’t payback right?”

She feels a breeze down her back like a gentle sigh, feels her hair where she tied it up high in a ponytail brushing her neck.  She looks beside her and say, a tiny bit shakily,

“ _You’re late.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Winter Soldier is a bright, dark eyed man with a small grin and a troubled past.

She holds on to him and never lets go. 

 

* * *

 

Bucky lives in an apartment, coincidentally ( _Hah)_ near her old one. She offers him a place in the Tower after she asks Tony but Bucky says he was just fine over there. He visits though, a lot of times. They would take long walks by the city or stay late nights in the bars.

She tries to tell herself that this is fine, that they are both here and so everything is _fine._

When Bucky unconsciously breaks two of her fingers when she tries to help him, his face crumples and Stephanie knows that everything _will_ be fine.

Just not now.

 

 

She wants to take him to see Sam, if she could get him over his guilt that is. She said, “I’m _fine_ Buck, super healing powers remember?” He doesn’t budge for the next three weeks so Stephanie decides that if she can’t bring him to Sam, she’ll bring Sam to him.

She finds out she doesn’t need to when she visits Sam’s place and sees Bucky on one of the chairs.

He gives her a small wave.

 

* * *

 

(Tony, we should get over this one to-

No.

But Tony-

I said  _no,_

We _have_ to. It’s part of her b-

_Nyet.Non.Nein.Noo-)_

 

 

 

Tony had various ranges of feelings when Bucky first came around-

(It was like they were attached to the hip, how _couldn’t_ I get-)

There was surprise of course, and joy too he supposed, he’d never seen Stephanie this happy in a long time, and then, suddenly, _suddenly_ , there was anger.

It starts on bagel-movie-spaghetti night. Tony doesn’t react when he sees Bucky sitting at _his_ usual place but he doesn’t really know what to do when he and Stephanie started murmuring and laughing softly to each other, he knows not to show that he’s irritated when he notices them _cuddling_ on the sofa with him at the end and Thor on the other. Well he couldn’t blame them, everyone cuddles on movie night.

But there was cuddling, and then there’s _this_.

‘This’ is hands snaking up to rest on waists, it’s the occasional caress of the hands and teasing pinching noses, it’s the kiss on the cheek far to near to the mouth and its _disturbing_ because this time it’s not only from Stephanie. Bucky gives back, with vigour. He says all the right things to make her smile and laugh, he acts natural and laid back to make her comfortable and he’s _Bucky,_ who Stephanie admitted she once loved and Tony feels like absolute trash because Stephanie is _happy_ and somehow he’s _angry because of it._

 _(_ You just wanted her to be happy because of you. It’s just simple jealousy Tony.

……Shut up.)

It goes downhill from there.

Whenever he sees  Bucky with Steph he turns the other way, he spends his days in the workshop and nights in…..well the workshop because really everywhere he goes there’s Bucky and when there’s Bucky there’s Steph and he _really_ should get over this. Clint already started to crack up the sex jokes and he could feel Natasha’s glares like daggers at his back, Thor and Bruce are either watching warily from the side lines or smiling knowingly and Tony doesn’t think about that.

It’s too much. It’s like they _want_ him to do something. Like explode. Or make Steph sad. 

“Stupid _stupidSTUPID.”_ The mumble ends in a shout and the wrench he throws ends up smackdab in front of Steph’s face at the glass where she was standing behind from. There’s a crack. Good fucking _great._

She frowns at him. Well actually it’s the Frown of Disapproval and Concern so yes it’s a hundred times worse. He wants the ground to swallow him up _god._

“ _Tony,”_ he stops listening the minute she steps in- (JARVIS is _such_ a traitor-). She’s worried of course. Pepper’s seen him like this and he usually calls her by this time but _this_ time it’s for something ridiculous so maybe not. 

He revs up his drilling to unheard level of noise and hums _The Killers_ under his breath-

“ _Urk-“_

-which stops when he chokes as he felt strong arms at his shoulder and another manhandling him to the other side of the table-

“Steph what- _mmpphh_ -“

-and he has a mouthful of sandwich in his mouth.

Stephanie is _angry_ , her lips a thin line, her shoulders rigid. She’s tapping her foot, her arms crossed, and she says, clipped and commanding, “ _Eat.”_

He starts munching for dear life.

When he finishes, which was a surprisingly short time, then again maybe it’s because he spent too much time in the workshop which usually makes him not sleep and eat properly and- oh.

Stephanie looks at him pointedly as if saying, ‘ _Yeah.’_ and hands him a glass of water. He gulps it down quickly.

A moment passes. She rubs her hands together. “Tony.....what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He says quickly and really he should expect the hissed, ‘ _Bullshit.’_ from her but it still stings.

“Tony, everyone’s worried. You have to tell me what’s wrong, I’ll try to fix it but if you keep distancing yourself like this-“

“It’s not good for the team?” he wants to curl up and maybe just not exist for a while.

“- _If you keep distancing yourself like this then I can’t_ help _you.”_

He tries to blink but he can’t stop looking at her. She’s too kind, too _caring_. What if he lets her in and she left? Or worse, _dies?_

He says, “I just need some space.” He doesn’t say, “- _from you.”_

She stays there for a while searching his eyes for something, anything. But finally she sighs, stood up, pats his hands and says quietly, “Alright.” She turns around, “Alright.”

He feels miserable about it. Despite that, he still laughs when Steph warns him to eat breakfast tomorrow or she’ll tell JARVIS to lock him out of the workshop. It’s quite a nervous laugh actually.

He gets over it in the end. Got used to Bucky and Steph. They’re just friends, he tells himself, and if they weren’t one day, well, he wouldn’t be the one to ruin it for them.

It’s a distant ache that he hides and tries to bury every time she looks his way, but he’ll live with it. It’s one in a thousand different things he hides so it wouldn’t be that hard. Things go back to normal.

 

* * *

 

(Then _it_ happened.)

Tony wasn’t there when it happened and so was Bucky, he started roaming around Russia, talking about making amends or something while Tony had broken his arm on the last mission, so when they got a call about an old HYDRA base out in the Atlantic, Stephanie threatens to break the other one when he refuses to stay back.

“ _Tony don’t do this,”_

“ _Watch me.”_

 The base is underwater. In the middle of the _Atlantic_ , of _course_ he’s going, what was Steph even thinking-

“ _Stay.”_

They did get out without him in the end. After a shouting match that did absolutely nothing but waste their time but that’s not the _point._ He goes there by himself anyway, his Ironman suit is useless with his arm in a strap so he just takes one of the jets and tells JARVIS to pilot it.

It’s too late when he arrives there. The place is in shambles and there’s a hundred sopping bodies lying all around the wrecked metal enclosure. There’s shattered glass and buzzing wires, but the sound of running water gets to him first. There’s also a leak.

He hears a groan from under one of the collapsed metal beams and Hawkeye comes crawling out, his hands bloody. Tony quickly helps him get to his feet and notices the blood running down his forehead to his left eye,

“You shouldn’t be here.” He barks a laugh and Clint shakes his head, gasping out shallow, quick breaths, “No no, Tony, you _shouldn’t_ be here Stephanie will _kill you_ when she finds out,” some of his teeth are broken when he grins widely at Tony.

Tony reassures himself that Clint had said ‘When’ instead of ‘If’ and asks, half carrying him to the jet, “The others?”

Clint closes his eyes, “Down. Their coms all died out. I think their somewhere up north,” he says softly. Then Tony says, “Cap’?”

Clint flinches, spitting blood out of his mouth from his split lip, “Containment area.” a beat then, “She went alone.”

Tony swears.

 

 

 

 

 

The base was huge, immensely so. It’s a minute after she turns around and hears the grate of a huge lock behind her to tell that she was trapped. She’s in a big metal room. She thinks they may have caged some superhuman here in the past considering the dents and graffiti on the walls.

It’s flooded, up to her ankles and the water is freezing cold even when she’s wearing her boots. It creeps in. The cold.

She shakes her head and tries to get the door open with her shield.

When the room rocks violently she thinks it’s just another explosion but when it starts tilting she grabs on to the nearest handhold. It’s sinking, right when the lock closes the room separates itself from the base and sinks down. Stephanie tells herself to calm down, (she starts to breathe a little quicker-) and thinks about what she can do but comes up with nothing because for all her super soldier strength it wouldn’t ever be strong enough for her to fight the freaking _Atlantic Sea._

So she waits. Standing rigidly at a corner of the room, holding on to one of the metal bars as the room tilts here and there before there’s a final boom as it lands. At the bottom of the ocean.

All of their coms stopped working the minute they stepped in the base and maybe it was a trap or maybe it’s not but it doesn’t matter now. Stephanie hears the sound of running water.

There’s a leak.

 

 

 

 

They’re all gathered in the jet but Tony heart sinks and his face is pale,

“Where’s Steph?”

 

 

 

 

 

The waters rising and it is _cold_ so so cold. She hears whispers and gasps when it rises to her knees, she thinks the layer of water at her feet has already turned to ice and she can’t move, not a single muscle. She is stuck there and the walls closes around her and she hears Steve sobbing and wailing in her ears.

‘ _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so so sorry’_

She feels it dragging her down like Steve’s hands when they went down together, holding her like a lifeline but she is only death, she was his downfall. The pressure is heavy, tons and tons of weight on her shoulders and around her throat suffocating her. Puffs of hot breath goes out, cold sweat runs down. She sees a wrinkled, pale face staring back at her and she shuts her eyes and tries to remember everyone else.  

The _warmth_ they offered, the sunshine she felt. Her nails are digging in her palms and she barely feels it bleeding.  She shakes and trembles uncontrollably and whispers reverently, breath stuttering,

_‘Nick Fury’_

_‘Dum Dum Dugan-’_

She covers her face with her hands. It’s unsteady.

 

 “ _Tell me.”_

_“Tony-“_

_“ **Now**.”_

 

 

She remembers the water hitting her eyes first. It lashed out so fast she didn’t have any time to close it, its thousands and thousands of needles aimed at her corneas turning into searing cold metal as it flows through the slits in her eyes.

‘ _-Jim Morita’_

_‘Phil Coulson’_

_‘Bruce Banne-’_

Then it had felt like weight. Weight at her chest, all around her body, at her feet dragging her down, down, _down._

_‘Natasha Romanoff’_

_‘Virginia Pepper Potts’_

_‘Sarah Roger-‘_

Then there was the cold. Creeping in her through her darkened vision, like ice cold burning metal fluid crawling through her fingernails, mouth, nose, ears. She tried to breathe, she takes in a lungful of water and breathes out ice and snow.

_‘Steven Grant Lawson’_

‘James _Bucky Buchannan Barnes.’_

_‘Margaret Peggy Carter.’_

Its hell. That’s what it was. She whispers, chatters, and gasps out their names, sucking in cold depleting dense air on blue bloodless lips hoping it’ll warm her but what it only does is remind her of their gaping absence-

‘ _Anthony Edward Stark.’_

She’s not crying but she feels tears leaking out cold burning tracks down her face.

“ _Tony Stark.”_

It breaks out broken and fragile, a desperate plea. Her voice cracks,

“ _Tony,”_

The water rises to her chest.

 

 

 

 

 

“ _It could be anywhere Tony-“_

_“A big fucking metal room it’s not that hard to look for,”_

_“Compared to the ocean?”_

 

 

The water’s at her neck now, she reaches her hands out to god knows what- Well. God maybe. And right after it closes over her face she shuts her eyes and holds her shield tightly.

 

 

 

“ _Tony- Tony calm down-“_

_“Fuck off.”_

It’s a week before they find her, and really, if it wasn’t for Thor it would’ve been longer. It’s a massive big block of ice when they fished it out of the ocean and Thor had torn through the metal walls with his hammer.

Tony stands on top of the ice and nearly steps on cold shivering fingers sticking out of it. It’s in a spasm, pale, and dark black blue on the fingertips. A mortified sound comes out of him and he drops down to his knees, grips the hand tightly, rubbing it with his own but it doesn’t stop quivering, trembling and _fuck- Stephanie she’s-_

_“THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? BREAK THE FUCKING ICE-“_

This time it’s different. _It’s different_. This time it’s a slow process and she’s awake throughout all of it. She’s not breathing but her blood was still flowing so it moves, tremors by itself, its thorns, needles, and poison in her veins. 

When they freed her, her eyes are wide open, she doesn’t blink.

She’s mumbling something, (The names-) head thrown back then. Then there was warmth.

“Steph- _Steph_ , look at me, _please,”_

It covers her, and she feels sunshine, she wants to drown in it but she can’t move, doesn’t have the strength to- she blinks. It’s like someone washed warm water at her face. She blinks again and finally, _finally_ her eyes cleared.

She rasps out Tony’s name in his chest and he holds on tighter and lets go because sadly, he doesn’t have the strength to carry her, Thor does, so he carries her to the jet. They stepped up the heater. Tony never lets go of her hand.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She wakes up in a hospital again. She has a vague memory of throwing up sea water all over the bed and people tearing open her clothes to get her in some more warm ones but that’s just it really. There’s that dreaded heart monitor beside her and she couldn’t really turn her head to see who was sitting by her bedside. She just needs- she needs-

 _“Tony….where’s Tony?”_ She can’t really open her eyes now, _hell_ even lifting her finger was hard.

His there by her side in a flash, he cracks icicle jokes at her and she smiles softly in amusement. She sees the rings at his eyes, the constant movement of his hands, the pallid tone of his skin. She closes her hands over his because it’s still so _so cold._

She puts her fingers around his wrist and pulled it weakly to her face. He looks at her questioningly and she manages to croak out, “ _S’warm.”_

Tony stiffens, but then he runs his warm _warm_ calloused hands on her cheeks and face hesitantly, slowly, she sighs in relief. She doesn’t notice she’d closed her eyes when he runs his hands over those too. Knuckles brushing, a thumb at the underside of her jaw, and she starts to feel drowsy.

She remembers about the strap at his arm and murmurs, “ _m’gonna kill ya after this…”_

There’s a wet laugh and a quiet sob but by then Stephanie’s already asleep.

 

* * *

 

(Tony?

……Yeah?

Is this one of the events that happens because of a choice?

Not choice, two probabilities but hey, choices works too and……I don’t know either. It just-

Happens?

Urgh I hate it when you look like that, come on lets go get some ice-cream,

Sure thing Tony,)


	5. After That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t notice the thing behind her thrumming louder, changing and vibrating and if she had turned her head around she would’ve seen stars and planets mixing, melding and churning together-
> 
> What Stephanie feels though, is a gentle breeze.

She still has dreams. About Steve, how he died, the way he clung to her in the deep dark waters. But now she doesn’t wake up in cold sweat, it doesn’t turn into a nightmare. It’s just a dream.

It’s no less disconcerting mind you, but it’s…..manageable now. Less frequent, more unusual.

Now she dreams more of innocent laughter and bright carpets of yellow tulips, swaying in the wind. She visits Steve’s grave and the same yellow tulips brings a smile to her lips.

 

* * *

 

 

(Tony. Tony, we have to hurry things along now,

Alright, alright. She meets that guy right?

Yes.)

Johnny Storm greets her with a holler of, “Its Badass bitch- I mean- HEY! It’s _Captain America!”_ he shakes her hands energetically and starts talking to her in frighteningly high speed about having the hots for her since the forties and about her being super _super_ hot and _hot his hand was hot what-_

“Oops, sorry ‘bout that,” he is bright and full to the brim with energy but that might also be due to the fact that his hands are on _fire   ,”_ Just a little,” he shrugs and laughs breathlessly, waving his hands till the fire dies off “overexcited.”

She cracks a smile, “I can see that.”

They meet when she agreed to be at the new cover of _Times_ because they had a special women’s only edition and she did because hey, ever since she heard about women’s rights and all that, she’s all but proud that woman are treated with more fairness by this time. A little late for her taste but, well, at least they got there in the end.

Johnny happens to be at the back cover, advertising some motor company? She’s not sure, and it looks like he himself doesn’t particularly care because all in all, this guy feels like _Steve_ and she knows for sure that he lives to be in the spotlight and this Johnny is no better.

She’d never met all of the Fantastic Four yet, just Sue and Richard and that’s just because they had an emergency. For some reason, Tony was really insistent on getting _away_ from Richard and she wonders where the general dislike had come from-

(It’ll take me a lifetime for me to vent-

Alright Tony, perhaps another time?

_Nnnnggggghhhh.)_

They put fake dirt on her face and made her uniform a little more like when she’s at battle. She laments ever deciding to clean it. They’re going for this rugged, fierce, war-torn woman that has survived all odds but she requested for a casual too some time at the end of this month because _every_ women are to be appreciated.

Stephanie knows for a fact that for all the changes the world had experienced, the respect for woman is a minority of that change, there are websites, rumours and social networks that reduces her to this _person_ who love interest, body shape and a hundred other jargons that she doesn’t bother reading, are the only thing that matters and it, it saddens her.

(Because, seventy years later in the future, she still has people talking behind her back but _she can’t fight back-)_

Stephanie poses and thinks about those times she sees Steve looking confidently at the camera…..she also thinks about facing tanks and guns head on and finds that there’s little difference in either one really,

 She blushes though, when Johnny whooped and whistled by the side lines when she was on the shoot shouting things like, “ _Rocking on that boots Cap!”_  

When things are all wrapped up and she has her shield back at the straps Johnny asks her for a drink. She’s halfway through in saying, “No tha-“ when Thor barges in and said- sorry, _boomed_ that he has saved some mead from Asgard and he believes that if Stephanie were too try it she’ll get, “’ _Pissed ass drunk’_ is the term am I correct, Miss Rogers?”

She could only nod weakly as Thor roars in laughter and Johnny gives another whoop, fist in the air.

“This is going to be the awesomest night _ever!,”_ he grins at Stephanie.

She holds to him on that.

(As it was, she really shouldn’t have.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

JARVIS informs him of an incoming call from Stephanie and Tony’s all geared up and ready for an emergency when Thor’s booming voice filled in, “IRONMAN-”

He freezes, shakes his head and cocks his head to the side because there’s several more voices there,

“Thoooorrr, give that _backkk-“_   a wave of laughter, sounds of… _glass breaking?_ and he frowns because the inexplicably drunken voice had sounded like _Stephanie-_ Wait. Wait wait _holy shit did Thor get her-_

“Thor is Steph _drunk?”_ This is just the _best_ , he should head there right _now_ , there’s way too much blackmail material to miss out on this chance-

“THE GOOD CAPTAIN HAS INFORMED ME THAT SHE WANTS TO-“that’s _definitely_ glass breaking, and wood too if the loud crack was any clue. Where _are_ they?”-WITH YOU-“What the fuck what.

“ _It wash a jhoke you freaking shonn off a bitcsh-“_ oh god he _needs_ to be there this is fucking _golden._ He didn’t even need to ask JARVIS to start recording this shit.

“Steph, stephhhhh its _fuck._ Not freaking. _FFFFuuucccckkkkk!!”_ Tony is halfway through getting on his suit and flying to whatever the hell _that_ is going on when he hears Johnny Storms voice at the speakers. Johnny Storm. One of the fucking Fantastic Four and okay, he has a feeling he knows where they are.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes sir?”

“Are they..?”

“I’m afraid so sir,”

 _Shit._ They’re at _Reeds_ place and _no_ he is not getting anywhere near a ten mile radius of that man as long as he lived.

 The call is still on though.

There’s banging now, he suspects huge glass beers on wooden tables and then there’s Johnny’s voice screeching, “ _Say it Steph. Just. SAY IT.”_ And Thor’s roaring voice with other loud drunk voices in a harmony as they chants banging on the table, “ _FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.”_

Thor is roaring out the swear word like a battle cry and it escalates every second and _shitshitshit he wants to be there so bad-_

“Ffffuuu….”

It’s immediately silent. He thinks he heard someone’s breath hitched.

 _“Go on Steph, you can do it,”_ Johnny whispers vehemently.

“ _Ffffuuuu….”_

 _“OUT WITH IT STEPH-“_ Johnny sounded _hysterical._ He doesn’t notice he’s holding his breath, and he feels like crying in joy because _fuck yes he has this on **tape** -_

_“FRUCKING-“_

He trips on a wire choking in laughter.

 

 

 

 

He gets a call from Ben a minute after he leaves off to them and decides, ‘ _Ah fuck it-‘_

Ben only said _‘Get these blond idiots out of the building.’_ before hanging up on him.

Tony speeds up.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It’s the _best night ever_ is what Stephanie is thinking right when she staggers in Reeds lab. Of course she doesn’t _know_ its Reeds lab and even if she does she wouldn’t have _cared_ being too drunk and wasted and not having a good sense of judgement and all that.

Johnny’s outside with Thor trying to see who can move Ben when he’s already rooted to the ground and really the most hilarious thing is the unimpressed look he’s shooting at them. Stephanie mumbles something about going to the ladies when Thor suggests they used his hammer.

Nobody told her where the toilet was so she roams around aimlessly still wearing the full Captain America regalia and knocking the occasional expensive vase to the ground before moving on with a mumbled apology.

When she sees the lab she gapes around and goes a little sober examining thousands and thousands of scribbles of calculations and speculations on this transparent board as big as one of the screens in a cinema she’d been to with Natasha. She stumbles around, glancing and gaping at weird huge glowing test tubes and humming machines. She wonders why there aren’t any toilet bowl here, but then she raises her eyes to gaze on the Portal.

It’s extremely big. A huge metal thing that shapes around to a circle. It’s humming, and she sees that it runs in some kind of…..electricity. But then again, what doesn’t?

“Stephanie Grace Rogers.”

She whips her head around, narrowing her eyes at a figure sitting on one of the office chairs-

“Who wants to know?”

He cocks his head to the side, smirking at her. She swears for a moment there she sees his eyes _glowing purple_ , “Stephen Vincent Strange.”

She stares at him, puzzled, “Do they call you Steph too?”

She doesn’t notice the _thing_ behind her thrumming louder, changing and vibrating and if she had turned her head around she would’ve seen _stars and planets_ mixing, melding and churning together-

What Stephanie feels though, is a gentle breeze.

She also doesn’t see silent long purple sparks flowing from Strange’s fingers to the Portal but all of that doesn’t matter because just as Strange was about to answer, she takes a step back, slips on a paper and disappears, swallowed up, into the portal.

Strange hums.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Strange,”

“What is?”

“Haha very funny, now have you seen Steph?”

“I was…curious,”

“What. What do you me- oh no.”

“It wasn’t entirely my fault.”

“ _What did you do Strange-“_

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a sick, twisting feeling and _not_ the metaphorical type, it’s your insides thrown in a blender and your outsides melted like candle wax and she doesn’t know what the _hell was going on._

On the plus side, somewhere through her interdimensional wormhole journey she throws up a long line of puke that sees to it that she’s completely and ultimately sober and not blessedly drunk.

She wonders if that was really a good thing.

Then she gasps, blinks back small tears and hears-

_What the fu-_

 

 

“Oh god Tony Stark’s here, you are _so_ dead Strange-“

“…....”

“Strange?”

“.”

“ _Where the hell did he go-“_

She hears panting. Actually she’s panting too, but maybe that’s just from the shock because suddenly she hears _wood creaking_ and then there’s moaning and- where _is_ she?

She’s finds that she’s on her knees staring at a familiar looking patterned floor, and she’s about to drag her knees back up when there’s a low growly, “ _Steve,”_ at the bed beside her and she doesn’t think when she turns her head to face them.

 _‘Them’_ appears to be two butt naked men going at it on her bed because _yes_ it’s _her_ bed. She recognises it now, it’s her room in the tower everything’s where it should be but then there’s _them._

She gapes, horrified and lets out a weak, _”Oh.”_ -that doesn’t make any difference compared to the number of _‘Oh’s’_ going on over _there._

And she squeaks when one of them _screamed_ and oh god it’s so _intense_ , she wants to look away but then she sees one of the men’s faces and its _Tony- oh god- what is happening-_

The blond one, the one uh, at the bottom?, stiffens and abruptly turns around at her and she turns away because- oh my, _cocks._

She sees his face though so she can’t stop looking back. His freckles, his light blue eyes, that _hair colour-_ are they-

“-related?”  Tony asks her casually and she really can’t answer when he’s stroking down the blond ones stomach like that,

The blondie looks confused, flushed and embarrassed and he quickly covers the both of them with whatever sheet that’s left because it appears the rest are shredded to pieces, _wow._ Tony whines at him, kissing the edge of his jaw and mumbling something about late night hallucinations-

She knows she looks no better. She feels heat rising at her neck and stutters, stepping backwards. His eyes goes over her clothes and stops at the shield hanging at her back and somehow he gapes back at her too. _He knows_ so she says, “Stephanie Grace Rogers.”

They froze.

Then,

“Steven Grant Rogers.”

Tony says ‘ _Fuck’_ and ‘ _I had enough of this interdimensional shit why-‘_

She whispers, “ _Sorry-“_ takes another step back and blinks out of existence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ _Reed_ I know this is your shit that made all of this happened so-“

“Oh and she _magically_ came to be in _my_ lab then?”

 

“Uh…”

“What is it _Johnny_?”

“…..well, actually Strange was here so-“

“FUCK.”

 

 

 

 

 

She trips over a rugby ball and there’s this huge big-

_It’s the same blondie from before-_

“Hey I found Captain America!”

That’s Tony’s voice and she stares incredulously at the blondie before, “But _you’re_ Captain America-“and pops into thin air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s not even supposed to be _working_ \- I couldn’t get it to be functional for _years_ why is it now-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a rush of a breeze on a rooftop and she stumbles upon a solid mass of body and well, it’s _that_ man again. She says sorry and he says it’s okay, crinkles his forehead, frowns and, “How did you get in the Tower?”

She looks down at the sketchbook she accidentally knocked out of his hands, back at him and when she asks him her voice is quiet and shaky, “What’s your name?”

They’re drawings of Tony and it eerily looks like _her_ drawings of Tony. If she’s reading this right then this man must be-

“Steve Rogers.”

She hates being right.

He scowls, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

There’s another breeze, then Stephanie’s gone.

 

 

 

 

“It’s _still_ not working properly isn’t it? It’s still unstable, and if you don’t bring her back I’ll-“

 

 

 

 

 

When she appears at Tony’s office she has it all planned out. She’s Steph Rogers, an interdimensional traveller and would they please help her because she is so terribly lost right now she can’t stop blinking in and out of existence between universes-

But when she sees Tony striding in he pauses and stared at her like she’s making a huge offense and he hissed, “ _You know I’m in heat right?”_

She gapes, “ _What?”_

“Steve sent you didn’t he? What the fuck is that alpha male think he’s _playing at_ that _asshole_ -“

And she scowls at him because _hey_ even if the other her is a male that’s no right to talk about her and _hello_ she is _right_ here have some respect-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Alright, alright. It _isn’t_ stable, but there’s still a way to get her back we need to find a landing point. Somewhere she’ll always end up-“

 

 

 

 

“Steph Rogers. Interdimensional traveller. Please help me,” she should make a card out of this, seriously.

Tony sticks his head out of the car engine and she’s a little surprised by the absence of the goatee but more surprised by how _young_ he looked. He blinks at her and murmurs, “But I didn’t take pot last night…..”

Steph is all ready to lecture him about drugs and meds before she lurches out.

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s a probable landing point?”

“A thing that appears most desirable in the subjects’ mind-”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s _another_ night on the bed but thankfully it’s the morning after so she only sees the aftermath of it and woah, that is-

“-a _lot_ of leather,”

Steve’s hands is snaking up to the shield by the bedside so she quickly adds, ”Steph Rogers, interdimensional traveller. Please help me.”

“Oh.” He relaxes and grins at her slowly, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, Tony’s a little tired right now,”

There are chains at the bed frames and she sees a collar at Tony’s neck. She says wryly, “Really,”

He gives her a wolfish grin, “He asked for it.” stroking his hands at Tony’s hair softly, making the other sigh,

She rubs her thumb over her jaw, humming. “Well,” she shrugs, “You should’ve surprised him,”

They laughed and she feels kind of sad when she couldn’t feel the floor under her feet again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s _all over the place_ how are we going to find her-“

“Try Brooklyn-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

She is completely clueless on how this thing is supposed to _work_. She could pop out anywhere and disappear _anytime_ , how can she even ask for help if there isn’t even any _time_ to do it-

Then she pops into existence on top of a really nude, sweaty, Tony Stark.

The bed stank of sex and- -Strawberries? What the- Her face is inches away from him and they’re making close eye contact, eyes glazed, he’s panting and blowing faint wisps of breath at her lips and she jumps back, heart thumping and blinks out.

Naked Steve strides in a moment later from the toilet carrying a warm wet towel to an awestruck Tony Stark staring at his lap,

“Mister Stark?”

“Rogers, I’ve said your ass was great but your breasts are _amazing-“_

“W _hat-“_

Tony gives Steve an extra tip.

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s _not there-“_

“Alright, alright we’ll try to narrow it down-“

 

 

 

 

 

She has to give her a little credit though, male her seems mighty fine and nice looking, she wonders why he has the same name as her brother though,

“He’s _beautiful_ ,”

She’s between an aquarium and Tony but he doesn’t seem to notice and his eyes are all but pinned to something inside the huge glass. She turns her head and sees Steve and apparently merman her is also mighty fine and nice looking, more so with that sapphire fish tail glinting at her. He faces her back and sends her a signal, she smiles.

She turns to Tony,

“He says thank you. “she pauses. Maybe…

“-and that you are _very_ magnificent-“

Both of them stared at her in surprise as she waves good bye when she feels the tug at her stomach.

 

 

 

 

“This is a problem, it’s too sporadic and quick we need to think one step ahead-“

 

 

 

 

 

She does a pretty good backflip upon descending on this new universe and when she stands up, she faces Tony’s bemused look. She quickly steps back, looking around her. Nothings familiar sadly, but she knows enough to know that this is a-

“Tattoo parlour?”

He chews on a Churro, shrugging, “Tattoo artist.”

Stephanie tilts her head to the side, “And Steve is….”

He stops for a moment and scowled, “Steve?” he brushes his hands down his pants and reaches for another churro, “If you’re looking for _him_ his next door so,” He makes a sweeping gesture at her, “ _Shoo.”_

Stephanie steps outside, bells tinkling and sees a flower shop decked with orchids and roses beside the morbid building Tony owns here and she has an idea.

She comes back in. Tony frowns at her, opening his mouth with a, “I thought I told you tha-“

“I want a quick one.”

Tony is surprisingly amiable about it, “Pay up first ma’am, that’s how I roll,”

She gives him a wad of bucks –Johnny shoved it to her when he choked on his own breath from laughing too much- and he whistles appreciatively counting down the money. They spend twenty minutes doing it at the back of her hand before she winks out.

Tony shrugs.

 

 

 

 

“New York. Try fucking New York-“

“New York is _large_ Stark-“

 

 

 

 

It’s a black blocky lettering at the back of her hand that says: STEPH ROGERS. INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVELLER. PLEASE HEL and ends there and she thinks, “ _Hell huh?”_

She meets Antonia Stark and thought, “ _Not quite.”_

It’s a thought though, of all the universe she’d been in, _none_ of them had a female her and suddenly the 0.001% hits her.

“Stella?” She whips around and gapes at, well, Tony?

The woman is beautiful, dark haired and ruby red lips, she’s also wearing a white dress, a wedding dress…. Ah.

“ _What are you doing?_ You’re supposed to be fucking waiting for me at the _pier_ -“Stephanie gulps slowly and flashes her hand at her, there’s a “ _Oh,”_ and “ _Shit.”_

Stephanie frowns, “Langu-“

Tony laughs, raking her hands through her hair, “Girl,” she shakes her head, exasperated, “Just don’t,”

Now she just feels _awful_ , nobody likes a wedding crasher especially if said wedding crasher conveniently looks like the love of your life that you’re about to marry. That’s just _complicating._

Stephanie is curious though, “Are you-“ she thinks back, “Are both of you fine?”

Tony frowns at her so she murmurs, “With this, I mean, I’m pretty sure Tony has commitment issues so-“ 

She laughs again, but this time it’s a little more light hearted. Stephanie sighs in relief while Tony grins, “Still has them mind you.”

Tony smiles at her and _wow_ she looks like someone had brought the moon to her on her birthday, “We’re fine.” Stephanie takes in a short breath when Tony reaches out and brushed her hands over her dirty cheeks, “Better than ever.”

“I’m glad-“

 

 

 

“Call up Barnes, we need more info-“

 

 

 

 

She never thought of dying her hair before but then when she sees adolescent pre-serum her in spiky black boots, blue glittering eye shadow and streaks of gold at her hair and she thinks well maybe, why not?

The girl stares at her for a while, “And you are….?”

Stephanie finds it highly strange that after she flashes her hand at her, she only smiles calmly and asks, “Coffee?”

“Would you?”

She nods and walks around to her small kitchen, “Of course.” It’s her old apartment, she recognises the walls and the rooms but that’s about it. She sees heaps and heaps of medals and certificates congratulating her on winning competitions and awarding her for contributing her art to an event she doesn’t recognise. She must have been quite the artist, none of the medals were third or second place. But all in all it’s still quite a normal life, there isn’t any crime fighting hero or crazed villain on the loose or anything like that so why was she so calm about this?

They sat down on the sofa sipping coffee when Stephanie asks her and the girl grimaced, “I met my boyfriend when he crashed his flying-laser-shooting car in my apartment so,” she shrugs.

Okay. Maybe not so normal then.

They chatted after that, mostly about Tony and his crazy regularly impossible ideas and Stephanie wants him to see if he knows anything about any of this but then Steph2.0’s teacup crashes to the floor when she lets out a breath in another universe.

OtherSteph picks up her phone and admits to Tony that maybe his wormhole theory wasn’t quite as ridiculous as she thought it’d be.

 

 

 

 

 

“Weeeelll have you tried Doritos? Make sure it’s cool ranch she _loves_ those-“

“Don’t fuck with me Barnes,”

 

 

 

She thinks about an excuse now. The whole Captain America uniform is admittedly unusual and faintly upsetting if the glares she gets from a group of jocks was any clue. It’s a university, she thinks. Loud crowds, books and papers everywhere, she kind of wished she had a normal life instead of the whole save-the-world job, always wanted to finish her life as an art student.

She doesn’t know how long this jump is though, so she quickly searches for a hint of dark hair or light blue eyes. (She has a hunch on why she always ends up with them, but she doesn’t think about it now. Maybe later.)

Then she spots Steve Rogers hunched down on a bench sipping on

a coffee, newspaper sprawled at his lap. She gets closer, sidestepping from a group of giggling teenagers and peeking over his shoulder to see the newspaper article the page was splayed on.

She notices Tony’s public smile spread opened at the article and Steve idly spinning his pen around, mumbling something. She narrows her eyes and finally sees the crossed out letters at various parts of the newspaper, the small pop section with Steve’s face on it beside the article and the baby blue nail polish he’s wearing on slender strong fingers tightened over the pen. The crossed out letters were: ‘ _Steve Rogers’_ and she gets it.

Stephanie places her hand at the others shoulder and asked casually, “Excuse me, do you mind telling me your name?”

She jumps up from the bench, spilling hot coffee down on the floor and turns around staring at her. She stutters, “St-stev-“she shakes her head slowly, looking down.

When she raises her head up Stephanie is proud because she sees that the other is wearing that Captain-face Tony’s always telling her about. She stands up a little straighter and says, “My name’s Stephanie.” and a little anxiously, “Did you need anything?”

Stephanie nods, “I need Tony,” he can fix this. She knows he can, he’s a genius and she doesn’t need him reminding her every minute of the day to remember. (Welllll it actually depends on whichever universe she’s in right now so-) she also says, “And my name’s Stephanie too,” smiles and flashes out before she can see secondSteph trip in her wedge sneakers with surprise. 

 

 

 

 

“Hmmm…. Did you try me?”

“Yes.”

“Awe Steph, and I thought we had something there,”

“ _Barnes_ -“

 

 

 

 

 

Male her is mighty fine but male her before he muscled up was downright _adorable._ He’s cuddling with Tony on the couch, sighing contently and stroking Tony’s sleeping face slowly right when Stephanie falls in front of the TV.

“What-“she flashes her hand, “Oh.”

He blushes, -she resists pinching those rosy little cheeks- and stutters, “C-coffee?”

 Tony mumbles something and Steve hushes him quietly. He gets up and nods at her shyly, “Tony’s work friend?”

She beams at him, “I guess.” And start to walk over to him before tripping over a gun in another life.

 

 

 

 

 

“Okay okay try Sarah Rogers-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ground is _vibrating_ , and her instincts kicked in as she ducks down to avoid a grenade thrown her way.

This is different. It _feels_ different, it feels like the calm before the storm.

 Her shield is at her hands in a flash when she hears gunshots and she scans the area, notes that she’s in a tropical forest and there’s a bunch of other soldier scrambling in the ditch she’s in trying to aim fire.

She hears the familiar sound of hundreds of ragged breathing, smells the acrid scent of smoke rising high in the air and sees blood and fire around her. But then suddenly there’s a dull _thud_ beside her and she forgets about any of those because the man nursing his ribs and coughing up blood is _Tony._

He doesn’t seem to see her, he’s gazing unblinkingly at the sky above him, gasping and heaving for breath. She feels her heart stop when she sees the pool of blood growing under him.

“Tony, _Tony!”_ She scrambles up to him, swallowing her panic and quickly putting her trembling hands to his blood soaked ones because when she went nearer she sees a big gaping hole near his chest and she _knows_ , she just knows that Tony is going to _die_ -

“Steve.” She tries to stop the bleeding but it keeps on flowing and flowing and there’s too much blood loss for him to survive this-

“I,” he chokes, and more blood dribbles down his lips, “I want to see Steve.”

She shushes him, holding him gently telling him to stay down, but he shakes his head and groans when a gunshot went too close,

He finally looks at her, “You’re one of’em angels right?” his right eye is caked with blood and there’s a foot long scar on his other one but he stares at her unwaveringly, “Let me see Steve.”

She shakes her head, blinking back tears, “Tony I _\- I can’t-“_

The blood is trailing down her skirt turning it into a dirty red, her boots digs down the muddy earth until her knees and Tony Stark dies in her arms with a whisper of a dead man’s name on his lips. She closes his eyes with trembling fingers, hugs him tightly, stroking down his hair.

She leaves with tears and the memories of a dead Tony in her mind and she thinks, ‘ _Nonono never again.’_

“Sarah’s a null I’m afraid, how about Peggy?”

 

 

 

 

 

Tony is discussing something with Nick Fury and she stays in the shadows guiltily hearing on their conversation.

“They found him?”

“Thought you didn’t care, Stark,”

“And I don’t, but do you blame me if I want to know why Howard was so obsessed in searching for this guy? Lemme see him,”

There’s a pause, then Nick continued, “Cant.” Sounds of feet shuffling, “He’s dead. Too much time in the ice.”

“Ah, freezes his heart off didn’t he, such a shame then.”

Stephanie doesn’t listen to them when they prattled on as they’re footsteps went away. She doesn’t listen because she’s _dead_.

She spends her time staring at nothing before turning around and seeing darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

“That too, we’re not getting anywhere Stark, maybe we should wait a couple of days then-“

“Shut up you. I’m holding you responsible for all of this-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

She steps quietly in the dark room and notices Tony’s light blue arc reactor glowing softly from his bed where he’s sleeping. She grabs her shield quickly when Tony suddenly gasped awake, eyes wild, his breathing irregular and erratic.

It’s a panic attack.

She stops for a moment before stepping quietly towards him. He doesn’t seem to see her, his eyes are glazed and he’s still giving out stuttering breaths when she’d sat down beside him rubbing his back and soothes him softly with soft words like, ‘ _it’s okay. Everything’s fine, everything’s going to be fine. You’re alright Tony. Just breathe slowly, there you go-‘_ he has his hands on the arc reactor like he’s afraid it’ll disappear so Stephanie closes her hands over it also, squeezing softly and finally,  his breathing steadies and he closes his eyes.

She strokes his head softly as he breathes in and out.

Then he lazily opens his eyes,

“Have we met before?”

She smiles shakily, “We met a lot, actually.”

He’s half a second away from saying something back but she goes out like a brief dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A pattern.”

“ _Of course-“_

She sees Steve’s bowed head facing the stairwell outside of Tony’s workshop. Inside of Tony’s workshop there seemed to be a kissing match between Pepper and Tony.

She understands, well, a little. She stoops down slowly beside Steve and ruffles his hair.

“At least he’s happy.”

Steve breaks on a sob but she sees the light in his eyes so she knows he’s going to be fine.

Just not now.

 

 

 

 

“Find it Reed, find it quick, were wasting time-“

 

 

 

 

 

She wakes up to an argument.

It’s loud, frightening and _nothing_ like the usual row she has with Tony from time to time. Steve barks at him like he’s a second away from striking him with his shield and Tony spits and hisses as if cursing the day Steve was ever born.

‘ _Stop.’_

A crashing noise, the sound of metal clanging.

She sees blood on Tony’s face.

‘ _Stop stop **please-‘**_

Her scream is cut short when she set out, and the last thing she sees is Steve’s surprised face when he looks down at the knife sticking in his chest.

He coughs up blood.

 

 

 

 

 

“-other dimensions are _dangerous,_ she might get hurt if she’s caught in the crossfire-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

She doesn’t want to open her eyes. It’s too much, _too much_. Worlds, events, and accidents, when will it end? Maybe if she just curls up here down at the floor and ignore everything she’ll come back. See _her_ Tony, not dead Tony, not angry Tony, not….not-

“ _It wasn’t **worth it** -“_

-not crying Tony.

She opens her eyes anyway.

She stands up shakily, stares at the body laid out in front of her and feels her knees shaking again. It’s another dead her.

She raises her head. That’s not important right now,

What’s important right now is Tony, hands clawing and digging through his scalp, Tony sobbing strong enough to shake his shoulders in shudders, Tony looking tired, bloody and finished-

She doesn’t know when the next tide will come so she walks quickly towards him, cups his face with both of her hands and firmly raises it to hers.

“ _It’s not your fault.”_ She needs him to _understand_ , to nail it in his head so he won’t ever forget-

“ _Tony **listen,** ” _she whispers harshly, urgently because his eyes are not focused at all, “ _It’s not your fau-“_

The glint of steel.

It’s her shield, she knows it’s her shield, but the only thing that registers in her mind is the look on Steve’s face as he raised it over his head.

Its anguish, fury and a hint of madness, she reaches her hand out to stop him but he brings it down like a guillotine.

Tony dies under him and Stephanie _screams and begs for it to stop stop please just stop-_

Tony’s body lies cold in front of Steve but she doesn’t comfort him.

She feels shame and anger towards him because somehow she feels that it’s her fault and how can she tell herself that? How can she just forgive herself for what she just did?

But she is still Stephanie and if anything, she doesn’t want to see a life go to waste.

So she says quietly, “He’d punch you.”

Steve freezes.

“And call you an asshole.”

Steve’s hand closes into a fist,

“But don’t for _one second_ think he’d want you to waste your life for him, _do not be that selfish Steve Rogers-“_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a loud resounding gunshot,

and then Captain Americas on the ground, blood pooling slowly from his chest.

Stephanie wonders who had put the chains in his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She wouldn’t know it now but she would later.

They called it ‘Civil War.’

Tony gasps out, his mask cracked and bloody and his face a mess of metal and bruises, his expression, _furious_ through the bloodied edges. Steve holds his shield up, the metal glinting orange with the sunset, splattered with blood. Comrades and other heroes she doesn’t know striking and hitting each other, wails of emergency responders and ambulances converging around the chaos.

She stands in the centre of all of it, her whole being trembling and shaking, her eyes sending her images of panic and turmoil that she just can’t _comprehend,_ her skirt, dried with Tony’s blood, her hands, full with Tony’s tears, and her throat, tight with the scramble of words straining to come out like a dam, but all that did, when Steve sees her lost and afraid, was,

_“Why?”_

It’s a deafening silence, ringing quietly.

Steve freezes, staring at her.

He turns his head then, at everything, the rubble, the bodies, the blood and the columns of smoke. She sees his face change as he stops, staring at the sunset, the light making his features older and gaunter. She sees him looking back at Tony and the sheer _horror_ washing over his face made her stepped back.

He drops his shield with a clang and Stephanie steps away with a sigh. 

She knows what he’s thinking, because she knows in her heart that this is everything she never wanted to become.

 

 

 

 

 

“Fucking calm down Stark,”

“I wasn’t expecting this from _you_ of all people Barnes,”

“Steph’s strong, even when she doesn’t think she is, and she’ll _stay_ strong, right until we figure out where she’s heading,”

“I know that. Of course I know that. I’m just-“

“Worried right? You know, the strange thing is, that’s what Steph said to me when you went out all alone fighting alien armies in outer space,”

“…..just tell Reed to fucking hurry up-“

 

 

 

 

 

(It’s near! _We’re_ near!!

Okay Tony, _calm down,_ get the things ready-)

 

 

 

 

The future’s a scary place, especially when you find another version of yourself cocking a gun to his head.

There was something else in the serum, she finds out later, it made him immortal, made him live longer and forced him to watch everybody else die except him.

She smacks his head with her shield and breaks his wrist when he lungs back at her. He’s shaking and trembling, his face pale, his hair long and filthy. He sees the back of her hand and he glares at her,

“I’m _tired_. Just let me- let me _rest-“_

She glares right back, “And what? Leave everything else behind?”

“YOU WOULDN’T _UNDERSTAND_ ,” he roars back, “It’s _dead_ ,” he goes quiet, “ _’Everything else’_ is dead.”

She feels a cold breeze, and when Steve turns his head to the side she follows and sees the gravestone in front of them marked in red and gold. Tony always goes out with style.

She feels her hands shaking again, but she hisses, “ _Then die like they did.”_ and was just in time to see his eyes widen before she feels the pull.

 

 

(Oh god it’s _so_ near-

Tony, help me up here would you?)

 

 

 

 

 

“We’re getting there Stark, all I need is a signal, just one and I’ll be able to track her-“

“ _You think she knows that Reed?”_

 

 

 

(Now. Its _now,_ Steve where is she oh god,

She’ll be here _right-_ )

“Now!”

Steve catches her in his arms, grunting when he feels her full weight but smiling at her when she stares back.

“Uh-“

Tony wheels pass her in his office chair, grinning wildly and shaking her hand brusquely, “Stephanie Grace Rogers, Yep we know you. As a matter of fact we’ve been documenting your _whole life_ , well sort of.” He shrugs while Steve lays her at another office chair left out for her, ”You don’t know it but we’ve met you before Captain, sometime in the past, and you-“ he nods at her, “have informed me that the universes –notice the extra s?- needs to know about your adventurous life.” He grins, “Glamorous isn’t it?”

She mouths, ‘ _Wha-‘_

And Tony’s smile broaden, clearly enjoying her confusion, ”The thing is Captain, we’re still in the middle –well end. Kind of. _Anyway,-_ of your story and if you really want to spread the word to every Steven, Stephanie, Stella and whatever’s in the multiverse then you should strap on because we really don’t have much time now-“

Stephanie’s in a daze, the words coming out of Tony’s mouth was a barrage of bullets directed at _her_ and she’s processing it like-

“-Photosynthesis?” Tony interrupts her thoughts, staring at her.

“What?”

“Because, you know, they process sunlight into food but its fucking slow-”

“ _How-“_

“Like I said, you came to me and told me _everything_ so now we really need to-“

“Tony,” Steve frowns, “Slow down.”

He sighs heavily and placed a heavy hand on Stephanie’s shoulders, “What he’s trying to say, Miss- um, Captain, is that we don’t have much time now but,” he smiles reassuringly, “in the near future you are going to tell us about everything.”

Tony nodded quickly, “Yes, yes. I _said that._ Five minutes from now Captain, you’re going to have two more jumps and by then we would already be contacting the Tony in _your_ universe and all of this will be done and dusted.” She blinks, and he continued, “Just don’t forget to build the time-space portal alright? Just tell Reed that or not there’s gonna be this whole time paradox breaking into a million pieces thing and you may just be responsible for breaking the Space-time continuum Captain-“

 _“Tony,”_ Steve scowled at him and Tony rolls his eyes 

in turn, “Okay, okay-“

After seeing them sleeping together she’s not really surprised when Steve stooped down and kissed him, if a bit chaste, he whispered something to Tony and she’s pretty sure that the two minutes should be up by now-

“Captain.”

Tony’s quiet, looking at her seriously, his face something unreadable she couldn’t make out, “Yes?”

He leans in, stared at her face to face and says, “This should end how I think it should end but, a while from now, me, as in the Tony in your universe, and if he’s anything like me, will make a decision that would end in…..not a really good way, so!” he claps his hands together, smiling dryly, “Try to convince me otherwise alright?”

He twists around mumbling, “If you can that is,”

Stephanie feels baffled because _how vague was that?_

She wants to ask him more but then they only have a minute left, so Steve says to her,

“And remember! The zero point zero zero one percent is just as important as the rest!” he smiles at her, all white teeth and sunshine at the back, she wishes she could have that effect on people really,

“But you already do.” He grins.

Stephanie gives him a puzzled look, “But what do you mean by the zero point zero zero one perce-“

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“We have a signal!”

“ _Shit._ Really? But how could she possibly know-“

“It’s….it’s from you actually,”

“ _Interdimensional shite-“_

It’s dark again. This time though, the place is stuffy, tight and- oh, she’s in a closet.

She hears quiet whimpers beside her and she has to squint slightly to spot the young toddler at the corner, hugging his knees together. He stares at her, scared and…and _curious_ she could tell, he has that _glint_ in his eyes that reminds her of-

“Tony?” They boy goes quiet; she tries again, “Is your name Tony?”

It _is_ him she could see the familiarity from him now, the dark hair, the shade of his eyes-

“Who’re you?” he shuffles a little nearer to her but not in reaching distance.

Stephanie tries for a reassuringly, gentle smile, (Like how Steve did-) and replied,

“I’m Captain America.”

It’s a wonder how fast his demeanour changed as soon as she said that, he beams at her, scrambling towards her and he’s _stuttering,_ “Y- _you’re_ Captain America?”

He’s beside her, scrutinising her uniform, his eyes go over her critically and she has to bite her lip to stop from laughing because Tony looked like he’s _checking her out_ ,

When he finished, pawing over her, ogling at the shield and mumbling something about the use of rifles?, he scowls and say, “But Captain America wore pants,” he narrows his eyes at her, “She doesn’t wear a skirt.”

Oh, so she’s also a _she_ here too?

She gives him a little frowny face, (She just couldn’t resist-), “Don’t you like it?”

He looks back at her in the dark- _why_ were they in a closet? (Her second thought was: _how is this closet so big?)_ \- and said  bluntly, “Do you?”

“Very much.”

He nodded firmly like he knew it all along and said, “That’s good then.”

She scoots a little close to him and asked, “Why are you in here alone Tony?”

He pouts at her, “Dad’s outside.”

“You’re hiding from him?”

He grins at her now, “Yep. He doesn’t know I’m not at the party.”

Stephanie thinks, ‘ _Howard brings his son who’s barely a toddler to parties?’_ and she asks the next thought out loud, “What do you do here Tony?”

He shrugs, “Stuff.” He hands her a wrench, “Mostly fixing.” and ducks down in embarrassment, “and sometimes making.”

It escapes her sometimes. How _brilliant_ Tony was.

She gulps and thinks she hears Bucky at the other end of her ear saying something about Doritos,

“Tony.”

“Yes?”

She has his full attention now, good.

“Go outside.”

He falters, “What?” and his face is creeping back to that destructive defensive mode he has on him so she quickly replies,

“There’s _more_.” She nods at him, “You can do more fixing and making if you go outside Tony.” She smiles at him now and tries to summon the sunshine from behind her,

“Don’t let Howard drag you down.”

She manages to ruffle his hair before she sneezes in a poppy field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You made it! Woohoo! See? You totally didn’t have to worry-“

“ _Shut up Barnes_ and it’s totally thanks to _me_ alright-“

 

 

 

 

 

 

She takes in a deep breath, a lungful of fresh air and revels in the feeling of the rushing wind. The place is beautiful, red poppies swaying in the breeze, far and wide as the eye could see, like waves and waves of deep bright red.

Then a voice, slow and grating, says softly beside her, “Still looks as gorgeous as a woman as you are a man now that I see it,” 

She turns around slowly and smiles when she sees Tony. Old Tony that is, grey hair and varicose veins running at his hands, he’s sitting on the ground under a tree. He smiles at her ruefully when she frowns at him when he said, “That ass always gets to me,”

“You didn’t say anything of the sort before,”

He raises his eyebrows at her and laughs, “Didn’t to him either,” he stares at the skies, mumbling, “I chickened out,”

Stephanie frowns, “But then, the two of you…?”

Tony sighs, “He figured it out in the end,”

“What did he do?”

He grins at her and she remembers that one time Tony saw her in a swimsuit, “Oh?” his grin widens, “It’s quite surprising actually, never thought he had it in him,” Stephanie walks a little closer to hear better, “I asked him if he ever gets tired of that stick up his ass and you know what he said back?”

“What?”

“He said: _‘I wouldn’t get tired of it if it was your stick,’”_

Stephanie _drowns_ in her blush and shuffles her feet together, looking down. Tony barks in laughter and chokes out, “He did that too!” Stephanie glares at him back and looks away. She stands beside him and tries to change the subject while Tony was still chuckling to himself with mirth.

“What are you doing here Tony?”

He clears his throat and shrugs, “Just an ordinary old man,” he takes a deep breath as a wind blew past them and grins at her, “enjoying nature.”

Stephanie sat down beside him and hums, “You are many things Tony Stark.” She gives him a dry smile, “But ‘ordinary’ is not one of them.”

He laughs again and looks down at her in amusement.

“Who knows?” and ah, there’s that bottle of beer in his hands, this is _definitely_ Tony. He winks at her before he chugs it down, “I might just surprise you,”

‘ _You do.’_ She gazes up at the clear blue sky and the fluffy white clouds floating overhead, ‘ _Every single day,’_

There’s a moment of silence, then he says,

“Interdimensional traveller?”

She nods, “One and only Stephanie Grace Rogers,” she thinks about it, then added, “Help me?”

The breeze brings her more voices, of Reed’s high consistent tone, of Bucky’s irritating laugh and- and there’s Tony too, somewhere there. He sounds angry.

But it’s _her_ Tony and she must’ve made some kind of weird face because then, old Tony chuckled and smirks at her,

“Looks like you already have it missy,”

She feels her insides melting like candle wax and her outsides churning in a blender and manages to get, “ _It’s Captain,”_ out of her mouth before she feels herself sink to the ground in the deep dense air of the multiverse before she gasps out and blinks back tears from her eyes.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She feels hands holding her face up and someone checking her pulse and then suddenly there’s a flashlight at her eyes and she blinks again. She hears Tony’s voice saying, “ _Cap? Steph?”_ and she realises that she’s on her knees again, on cold steel floor, and suddenly _everything_ comes back to her.

She remembers the worlds, the Tonys and Steves, and the events that had been floating around in her mind because she had tried so hard to not think about it and she wonders why her head felt like it’s a second to _combusting_.

She also wonders why Tony’s lips are on hers when she feels her lung constricting. Then, _‘Oh,’_ and, ‘ _I can’t breathe-‘_

She feels her throat, tight and swollen, and she feels hands on her back and warm fingers at her cheeks, and then she blacks out.

 

 

 

A month after that she tells Richard about the time-space portal and he squeals in excitement before scuttling off to his lab, she thinks she saw Strange wandering in behind him but she doesn’t say anything about it. She doubts anyone wants to know that the portal probably had only worked because of his magic, Richard would _kill_ her.

Bucky gives her a fist bump right after she wakes up in her bed at the Tower and he follows her to the kitchen where everyone was gathered. Staring at

her. Especially Tony.

“Soooo…..”Clint raises his eyebrows, “What happened?”

She tells them. (But she keeps it vague and mainly tells them about the Steve and Tony that had helped her come back. She says nothing about Civil War.)

Tony doesn’t come out of his of his workshop for months after that, but its fine. Stephanie climbs down from her window and breaks the one at the workshop open when she couldn’t break through the glass. ‘Captain-Proof’ he’d said. Hah.

She shoves a pancake in his mouth this time though, and throws away the wine cabinet out of the window.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s connection.”

She’s sitting down with Stephen Strange but it’s totally fine. She knows what she’s doing.

He taps on the table lightly, dark hair flopping at the sides, “You craved connection.”

She’s tight lipped when she says, “With him?” That was why she always ended up with _them_ , and that’s not the only thing isn’t it?

He looks at her pointedly, “Who else?”

She shakes her head, it doesn’t make sense. It still doesn’t explain why she ended up with-

“What about the others?”

Himher drawing alone on the rooftops, youngTony taking drugs, Tony finding out she’s already dead in the ice, and- and _the War-_

He sighs, bored obviously but ready to be done and finish with this, “They too. They hungered to be with him and it doesn’t just go one way. That is where you shared your similarities with them, in that moment, that _time_ , the versions of him and you are either yearning for the other so strongly that it pulled you into it or they are excessively thinking about the other every single time-“ and he stops there. Stephanie glances up at him and was surprised to see the same expression on his face.

He snaps back to look at her,  and grins, eyes shining,” That’s it really. There’s a possibility you ended up where you are randomly but that’s _impossible_ because, sadly, the majority of the multiverse is a future where the two of you stayed friends and lived with it and nothing more than that and _do you see it Stephanie?”_ He leans in, she feels herself turning pale.

“I-“

“It’s _fascinating_. When you told me where you’ve been, I concluded that not only have you avoided the _majority_ _of the multiverse_ because of the strength of the pull, but you had done it _unthinkingly_ ,” he blinks, settles back down in his chair and stares at the sky above.

They’re sitting at a balcony, breeze flowing into the café inside, she sips on her coffee. Three sugar cubes, she always liked it sweet and milky.

“Stephanie my dear,”

She closes her eyes,

“Just how strong are your feelings for him?”

She doesn’t answer, and he leaves her after she says, ‘ _thank you’_ because she thinks he might’ve helped her accomplished something. To the universe(s) that is.

It’s just a hunch.

 

* * *

 

It’s a while after that, when Wanda Maximoff digs Tony’s greatest fear out of him and he starts to feel burdened.  He has a haunted look in his eyes, twitchy, extra snarky than he usually is, and when Stephanie sees his grip on the steer tightening until his knuckles were white she pulls him away to talk to him.

He’s irritated, “What do you want Cap? I need to talk to Bruce so if you’ll please make this quick-“

She cuts him off by placing her hand gently on his hand, he stutters to a stop and she asks, “What’s wrong?”

They stared at each other. Tony says to himself that Stephanie does this because she’s worried about a teammate, nothing more. He also feels his heart lurch when he thinks that this is _Stephanie_ and the very idea about losing Stephanie makes him want to take out another alien armada and _this_ is why he needs to take the sceptre before it gets shipped off-

“Tony?”

-he needs to protect them, needs to ensure everything he ever cares about is safe and secure so he could at least breathe a little easier-

“Tony!” He blinks and finally sees Stephanie’s worried face staring right back at him.

“I,” he starts, Stephanie waits for him, patient, “I-“he thinks about the time he sees Stephanie finding out about Bucky, the time where she goes quiet and pale after Peggy’s last message to her, the time where- (He desperately doesn’t want to think about it, but it flashes in his mind like a nightmare.) she comes out of the ice like a lump of meat, lips blue, eye and ears bleeding, rasping his name like a prayer.

Stephanie feels his hands shaking, “I’m _scared.”_ It’s barely a whisper but she catches it and she lets out a quiet gasp because she knows Tony would never, _never_ let his guard down. It’s like the armour he wears, if he doesn’t show himself he wouldn’t get hurt, strikes first before they would strike him, and doesn’t let anyone in it because he thinks _they’ll_ get hurt too.

He’s about to snatch his hand away but Stephanie holds it close and pulls him into a hug. He hitched a surprise breath and Stephanie held him tighter, she feels his lips at her nape and she says, “Tell me.”

He does.

And after that Stephanie tells him quietly, rubbing slow circles at his back as she feels her burrowing deeper in her shoulders, “Why are you doing this alone Tony? You _know_ we’re here don’t you? You don’t _have to_ Tony. I’m _here._ ” She pulls back and looks at him, her 

face stern, her mouth in a thin line, ”And if-“ she hesitates, and continues with a sigh, “If that does happen Tony,” she gulps, “I want you to be brave.” She pats his back, and adds a little more gently, “Alright?”

Tony let out a quiet laugh because really, it’s just a few words but, but it’s Stephanie and she tears down his armour he worked so hard for to build like it was _paper_. She tells him his not alone and thinks that he’s brave enough to let people die because of him, she holds him like he’s made of glass and she’s warm, soft and _solid._ She’s the anchor when he strays too far and he felt it ever since he let her into his life.

He wants to build solid metal armour around the world but she tells him that he doesn’t have to even if he could. Tells him not to because it would be too much even for him and she’s _worried_ , always worried and he realises that she’s never going to go away, never going to leave him and he feels, he feels _relieved,_

 _“_ Don’t be so _paranoid_ Tony,” she jokes. He sags into her and wraps his arm around her before closing his eyes.

He thought about the edge of an idea he had when he saw the flash of blue from the sceptre, a new world, a _better_ world, immune to any danger that might pose a threat to it, thought about the avengers, about SHIELD as it claimed world salvation while building weaponry built for mass destruction and he thinks of Stephanie, like a home he always runs to and he says to himself,

‘ _Not now.’_ perhaps later, but not now, because now, he has his team, has Pepper and Rhodey and yes, he has Stephanie. So he lets it go, stays in Stephanie’s arms and lets his fear flow out of him until all he could hear was Stephanie breathing quietly at his ear and his heart beating a steady rhythm.

 

 

(Oh, So Ultron doesn’t exist in that universe?

Apparently not.

He _was_ a little crazy wasn’t he?

Tony…

Yeah?

I should have noticed I-

Different circumstances, different worlds, different probabilities and different outcomes, remember that Steve, even if you _had_ noticed there’s a chance I wouldn’t have listened to you. As much as I hate to say it, don’t question how things are Steve,

Just look ahead right?

Damn right, now, we’re ending this right?

Almost there.)

 

* * *

 

They managed to recruit the twins with a little persuasion and teamwork but it also results in a whole city of rubble and three crashed helicopters so then again, maybe it wasn’t that easy. Stephanie thinks back about it and concluded that if it wasn’t for the sudden emergence of a crazed war organisation in the city and the twins being all awed by them when they saw the avengers in action the twins would have half-destroyed the Avengers by then and nobody wants to get in to clean up _that_ mess.

 

 

(Aaaaaannnddd,)

 

 

-the Vision is made into creation when Doctor Helen Cho’s father dies of incineration and she decides, quite rashly, to build a whole new body, organism, a _living being_ so she could bring him back to life. She’s crazed and saddened with grief and wasn’t thinking about it at all when she strides in the Tower where she knows Thor is sending back the sceptre to Asgard. She lies to him, isn’t stupid enough to take him head on so she tells him a fib about needing it for her work, uses it on him the minute the sceptre is in her close proximity and _hello_ , _well_ it works on _gods_ too.

She uses it on Tony too the minute she sees him and drags them all to the nearest lab where she already have the body placed. She came in prepared, paid people to do her job. She’s too far gone but she doesn’t care so she continues.

JARVIS is trying to help but with Tony’s hypnotised state he is forced to follow through too, he alerts the Avengers though and Stephanie comes bounding in right where she sees Cho taking away the gem and placing it in the body. The blue in their eyes vanishes, she’s a second away from transferring her father’s AI to it when Thor, enraged and confused slammed his hammer right at the metal coffin.  No one sees Tony trying to intercept Cho by putting in JARVIS’s AI inside, instead of her father’s right before Thor raised his hammer.

After Stephanie knocks down Cho and the rest of the team came in, Vision looks around and says,

“It’s alright.” Tony’s breath hitched, “I am meant to be here.” It says with JARVIS’s voice. Then it looks at Thor, "Am I correct?”

They kept a close eye on him afterwards, it turns out he likes to hang around with Wanda and he’s all calm and welcoming about it so Stephanie doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Peggy passes on at a Sunday.

Now, she’s wearing a dark black dress, and Sharon stands beside her giving her a little smile while Coulson stands on the other side looking straight ahead. Apparently not-dead Coulson that is, and really she’s not one of those people who aren’t mad at him but today is Peggy’s day so she files it in for later. She carries the casket to the ground, looks up bravely while the soldiers salutes and shoots the volleys and tells herself that she’s ready. Ready to take the next step.

Natasha helps her cut her hair short after she leaves the funeral.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The occupants in the Tower keeps on growing and growing and in a blink of an eye suddenly there’s T'Challa, Scott and Hope. They fit and Stephanie feels as if _this_ is what the Tower’s been waiting for. Them, her team, and Tony’s shocked look as he sees them lying around, drinks and popcorns all over the sofa and floors, TV noise in the background, smiles and laughter on their faces. She tugs his hand and he joins them, eyes bright and glowing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She sees it in their eyes even if no one says anything. Natasha gives her this tired expectant look when she gets near Tony’s ten meter radius, Clint jokes and jokes about them hitching up, Thor gloats about him and Jane’s honeymoon together, Bruce tells them again and again how he didn’t know Natasha liked him but she _did_ looking straight at Tony while he says it and Stephanie _flinches_ because even if they don’t say it they should at least put an effort to be more _discreet._

She doesn’t hear anything from Scott and Hope thank god, (They’re too busy observing _each other_ ,) and T’Challa is calm about it, tells her, ‘ _Say it when you feel that it is the right time,’_ and she holds on to him on that.

It’s possible. O _f course_ it’s possible, she’d seen so many of them getting together in so many universes that it just doesn’t seem _im_ possible but, the thing is, it’s not _her._ It’s them. Their different, they managed to not mess up, they are a whole different dimension living and sleeping together and she’s reluctant because what if it’s not for her? What if Tony was meant for Pepper all along and this is just some big mistake-

Her doubt disappears right when Pepper comes to her and hisses, “ _Stop dicking around already,”_ and smacks her on the head before kissing her on the cheek.

 She sends her homemade chocolates the next day.

 

* * *

 

It’s a trickling hourglass and the first half finally trickles down to the sands below when Stephanie decides to paint.

She likes it messy, uses cloths, sponges and fingers more than brushes.

She’s painting everything, Sarah, Duke, Steve, Bucky, Peggy, the Avengers, _everyone_ and it’s a kind of mantra to take the edge off because superheroing takes the joy of doing mundane things out sometimes.

She finishes at dinnertime, goes down to eat, hair sticky with various paints, hands and arms decked with colours and her white T-shirts and shorts not really any better either. She eats quickly noting that Tony’s by the workshop again and goes right back to painting when she’s done.

The team only shrugs and continues doing what they’re doing, after all, they’ve seen stranger things.

 

 

 

 

 

She feels like a tight, full, water bottle of soda shaken up and popping open and _bursting_ with foam and bubbles. She paints each and every one of the universes she went to in her interdimensional journey, even the one where they were, ahem, doing the do- (She makes it blurry, dark and covered because she feels like an intruder if she made it more…. _heated.)_ and the ones where it ended not quite right.

She wavers when she tries to paint the War but she does it anyway.

There’s a lot of red.

That was the last painting she did and suddenly she’s _exhausted,_ drops down on her bed, her hands shaking with the force she’d put striking on the canvas. She feels like stabbing her shield right through it.

Its one in the morning but she has the sudden urge to see dark hair and grinning lips so she goes down to Tony’s workshop, her body and clothes a mishmash of every colour of the spectrum splattered on it.

 Tony is pacing around his workshop, hands fiddling on a screwdriver and she laughs to herself when she sees that Tony isn’t any better than her, worse probably, because he is _covered_ with grease, streaks of dirt, patches of smoke and soot, his hair is a horror, shoots up here and there and she wonders what colour _her_ hair is by now.

He turns around, lighting up when he hears the door hissed open as Stephanie comes in. He blinks and sat down on the sofa Steph always curled up on when her room feels too small.

“Tough night?”

She smiles softly and hands him a cup of coffee, she always comes prepared after all. He croons in pleasure when he closes his hands over it sipping it like its holy water. “ _Thank you,_ angel darling.”

She fights the blush down and mutters back jokingly, “No problem muffins,”

He chokes on the coffee and Stephanie laughs and marvels at how _comfortable_ all of this is. They start talking about, well, anything really, it’s like a basic need, like eating or sleeping. They talk about nothing and everything and it goes to the topic of Bruce and his crazy dance moves, Stephanie laughs until there’s tears in her eyes and Tony’s eyes crinkles in mirth.

He turns on the music out of spite and they tried to imitate Bruce’s eccentric dancing, Thor’s tendency to crush fragile objects to the floor and T’Challa’s horrifyingly angry face and the weird swearing’s he does in another language when he gets really really drunk.

She doesn’t know what happened. But the music ends, and she remembers a silent thump when she feels Tony tripping at her leg. Then, suddenly, she’s straddling him.

She stares at him, her hair, short now, but still long enough for the tips to brush at his cheeks since that’s how near their faces are. She feels the weight under her, feels the up and downs of his chest as he breathes and as she carefully lays her hand on it. Now she feels his heartbeat, and she feels pure wonder because she’s breathing a little quicker now and it’s exactly the same pace of his heart. Her fingers tremble as it travels up and up, from Tony’s sweat soaked tank top to his neck, softly, carefully, and finally to his face, stroking down the dirty grease at his cheek, trying to wipe it away but only making it worse when she remembers she still has paint on her arms and fingers. The dark colour from it mixes with her dull blue colour, she leans in a little taking in Tony’s half opened mouth, red ears, and dark eyes, looking right back at her.

She strokes down his hair, not minding the slicked feeling of oil and sweat and breathes in the smell of Tony. ‘ _Tony is art,’_ she thinks, he’s abstract, beautiful and _alive_. She runs her fingers through his hair, neck, and cheek like she treats her paintings. With gentleness, caressing, assessing it and pushing at all the right places. He breathes heavier, hot and she basks in the way it brushes her cheeks. Her fingers leaves a trail of colours smudged with the dark slick that’s already there, she feels him shiver and she remembers the Steve Rogers with his excessive use of leather. She thinks she understands it now.

He’s sweating, hands holding on to her shoulders like a lifeline. When she hears his quiet moan as she runs through the heaving skin under his tank top she gives in. Gives in to the tense quiet room, to the ragged breathing, the heady scent of him and the stuttering gasps as she paints on him with colours and smudged oil, and _yes_ , to the silent plea present in Tony’s eyes as he trembles and shivers under her.

She places soft kisses up his neck and he groans and growls because he wants _more_. She gasps when she feels his hands running down her ribcage and she nips his ears for it. He goes, ‘ _Ah-‘_ again and for that, she sucks at his nape and she feels him wriggles, hands scrambling at her back as she bites at his skin. She looks at Tony then, beautiful, handsome, wonderful Tony and smiles shakily,

“I’m a little late aren’t I?”

He gives a quiet laugh before leaning up and giving her nose a little bite and an apologetic lick when she scowls back. Her face is redder than ever and his hearts pounding like it wants to fucking jump out so he says, “Better late than never,”

She laughs into the kiss but Tony makes sure she uses all her breath in it so she bites his bottom lip and reminds him that _she_ was the one with the super soldier breathing. Its gentle, but it trickles down to a heated, heady slide of lip and tongue, that ridiculous goatee grazing her cheek with beard burns. Tony pulls away with a gasp and when Stephanie follows his lips craving for more he chuckles and asks, “Bed?” ,swollen lips brushing against hers.

Her voice’s a little cracked but she manages a, “Yes please,” before she crushes their lips again.

 

 

 

 

They walked in the kitchen the next day, Tony, groping the coffee machine on blindly as he yawns, pale and mumbling. He’s half naked and wearing Stephanie’s shorts and Stephanie is ruffled and fresh, smiling widely at everything as she makes orange juice, crushing it right from the fruit. She’s wearing Tony’s boxer briefs and his torn tanktop.

Natasha says, “Fucking _finally,”_ , Clint fists bumps Natasha as they went out and Thor starts to plan on double dates when he sees Stephanie kissing Tony softly.

It could’ve been worse, she thinks, but then again, Scott and Hope is making out in every available space they have so maybe they just got used to it.

She hopes.

 

* * *

 

They dated for a year, engaged for a month, and married in a week when Stephanie says she loves the spring so he better does this right. Tony _beams_ at her and huffs, “Cap, this is _Tony Stark_ you’re talking to,”

 

 

 

She remembers waiting at the pier hoping, _hoping_ that this wouldn’t mess up. That the world would just freaking calm down for _one_ day.

When Tony steps in (Stephanie was adamant on her waiting at the pier, she wants the image of Tony striding in with little Clint Bartons shooting flower arrows behind him imprinted in her mind thank you very much-), black tie and the most honest smile she’d ever seen on his face she actually believes it-

“ _OH MY GOD-“_

-and _of course it had to be flying laser shooting robots_. They crashed in all the windows and doors blinking out red and yellow lights everywhere. Tony trips and says, “ _Shit-“_ but he doesn’t _care_ , he throws away his shoes to smack down the robot that was in his way and _sprints_ to the pier.

The pope is a mumbling, murmuring terrified mess so he says, ‘ _Damn It.’_ and, ‘ _Just kiss the fucking bride why don’t you, I don’t want to die now please just-“_ so Tony jumps on the pier and Stephanie catches him halfway, smiling and laughing despite the total chaos surrounding them. She has her hands on his ass, his arms around her neck, and his legs wrapped around her waist. They kissed in a dizzying twirl, making his hair fly everywhere and her long dress burnt from one of the stray lasers.

Pepper screams Tony’s name and throws him the ring. He catches it, slides it in Stephanie’s slender finger while she uses her other hand to punch the lights out of one of the robots-

( _Literally_ , ahahha

Tony,)

She throws the flowers directly at Bucky’s face, he spits out petals and she smiles and thanks him for being her best man while he glares at her back.

When they’re back at the Tower, Tony shrugs and says, “Well,” he grins, “It could’ve been worse.”

Stephanie laughs and stares at their entwined hands, gold bands shining. She holds on to him a little tighter and squeezes his hand.

Tony kisses her.

 

 

 

 

 

They spent their honeymoon in France, where Stephanie wishes she’d went to for her art degree, then its Malibu where Tony feels the most comfortable and safe, where he always wanted to show Stephanie his secret yacht. Then, finally, and oddly too they might say, they spend their time in Clint’s house.

It’s nice and fun with all his kids running around. They helped them around the house and Tony thinks they might be staying here too long when he sees Stephanie breaking a log in two with her bare hands and apparently they can’t use the bedroom right now because one of the boys had spilt pink paint on the bed and- _fuck it_.

He asks her if she could tear open his clothes like that too and she says, ‘ _Tony-‘_ before grabbing him to the nearest bathroom and having her way with him.

(And this is happily ever after?

…..not quite.)

 

* * *

 

 

It’s when she sees Tony, jaws clenched, eyes stormy, staring down at the city lights below that she knows she needs to talk to him before he does anything rash again. She kisses him softly and tells him that if he ever thought he needed to control the way everything was than she wouldn’t really _be_ here.

He blinks, nodded slowly and slides back in the bed with her. She sighs in relief and closes her eyes.

(In another world, Tony wakes up and knows with a sudden clarity that his world isn’t changing. It’s the world he loves and cherishes and it’s not _changing_ -

_So he vows to change it himself-)_

-but here and now, he tucks his head close to Stephanie’s heart and drowns in the silent rhythm of her beating, and the next morning, he sees Stephanie’s bright smile and wonders how everything had turned out like this. He gives out a long sigh and decides that this is enough. This is it and he had never felt this light in _ages._  

 

* * *

 

Civil War doesn’t happen. Stephanie’s sure that it isn’t because of her gender, maybe it was because of probability but mainly, mainly, it was because of _trust._

It doesn’t really end here, they might come across more complications in the future but they’ll get over it. She _knows_ they would. It’s not _quite_ a happily ever after because happily 

ever afters is assuming that they would be happy for as long as they lived and that’s not ultimately true.

They’ll be bitter, sad, and angry, in some places but they’ll come back sooner or later after that, and perhaps, Stephanie thinks, _that_ is what they meant by happily ever after.

She thinks again, about everything. About what she had to do to be here, about people who left her on the way and people who joined her as she arrives, and she decides that even if the probability of being a dame is 0.001%, the chances of being brave are _endless._

 

* * *

 

(Done. It’s _actually fucking done._

Yeah….

Time to send it?

You betcha,

Alright, sending it out in one, two,)

Three, and everything flashes as the existence of Steve Rogers across the multiverse hears a voice in their heads as they lay dreaming,

_‘In this world there is no Captain America.’_

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up, this is my first ever Stony fic and I am allergic to grammar. My OC's wont be that prominent to the story but their supporting characters so bear with meh and I couldnt find a beta but I hope this turned out fine,  
> Be nice and please comment? ^ ___^


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